While I spend a great deal of my day online and tend to be an early adopter, I was so late to Facebook that it already boasted over 100 million members when I joined. The network has expanded to include some 850 million accounts that were active during the month of December, 2011. Interestingly, one's age appears to be an indicator of the likely size of one's Facebook friends network. Lee Raine, Director of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, Read More …
Pew Research Center
The Other Half (#0639)
Protestant churches have done exceptionally well among those who are married and even better among those who are married and have children. These groups, as a percentage of the total American population, have been shrinking for decades and likely will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The latest data from the Pew Research Center shows that only half of adults (51%) aged 18 and older were married in 2010. Additionally, the median age for first marriage has risen steadily Read More …
Progressive – The Best Word? (#0596)
The Pew Research Center for People & the Press released the results of their recent poll of American's views of political terms. The term with the most favorable view is progressive. Interestingly, it rates about 33% higher than the term liberal. So What? Many people characterize mainline churches as theologically liberal. Do you think congregations and denominations should move beyond that label and claim the more culturally valued term progressive to describe themselves? Read More …
Becoming a Tablet Family (#0566)
My wife purchased her first tablet, an ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, on Black Friday. I purchased my first tablet, a Lenovo Ideapad K1, a few days later for the same price. In the matter of a week we went from living in a tablet-free home to each having a 10.1 inch Android tablet of our own. And, of course, we both know we have the better tablet. Spec by spec the machines are relatively similar: mine weighs more, has more internal memory (32MB vs 16MB), and slightly better battery Read More …
Economic Well Being: A Generational Concern (#0545)
The Pew Research Center recently published an article exploring the increasing gap in economic well-being between the young (those households headed by someone under age 35) and the old (those households headed by someone over age 65) during the last twenty-five years. The data shows the following shifts: Median net worth grew by 42% for the older cohort while falling by 68% for the younger cohort Median adjusted household income grew by 109% for the older cohort while rising by only Read More …
There is an App for That (#0539)
The Pew Research Center recently released the results of a survey conducted by their Center’s Internet & American Life Project, which was a national survey of the state of apps culture conducted from July 25-August 26. Among the findings: Half (50%) of all US adult cell phone users now have apps on their phones (up from 42% in April) Three-quarters (75%) of all US adult tablet owners now have apps on their tablets So What? What computing devices American adults use is also Read More …
More & More Multi-Generational Households (#0513)
The Pew Research Center recently released "Fighting Poverty in a Tougher Economy, Americans Move in with Their Relatives." The report considers how the Great Recession has influenced household composition. Over the last few years, more and more people have opted to live in multi-generational households as a means of handling economic pressures. A longer term look at household composition shows that the percentage of those living in multi-generational households declined Read More …
7 in 10 Now Use Video Sharing (#0447)
According to the latest research by the Pew Research Center, 7 in 10 (71%) of American adults who go online now use video sharing sites. The current number represents a five-percentage-point increase from the 66% of online adults who reported being video-sharing site users a year earlier and a 38-point increase from five years ago when the Pew Internet Project took its first reading on use of such sites. So What? Around the time the folks at Pew started this annual survey, many larger Read More …
Where Have All the Catholics Gone? (#0346)
Established in 1964, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) is the largest independent print and web Catholic news source in the United States. Recently, the NCR published an article by Fr. Thomas Reese, former editor in chief of America, exploring the massive numbers of people who have left the Catholic church in recent years. He frames the issue thusly: The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life has put hard numbers on the Read More …
Statistical Surprises: Marriage and Divorce (#0317)
The Daily Number is provided by the Pew Research Center that "highlights an important finding or trend." A few days ago, the number looked at the unusually high rates of both marriage and divorce in the United States. When compared to the European Union, Americans are far more likely to experience marriage (51% higher) or divorce (76% higher). Interestingly, however, American divorce rates in the sample year (33% of the measured events) were similar to those in the EU Read More …