Findings

Overview

In a national survey between November 30 and December 27, 2009, we find:

• 74% of American adults (ages 18 and older) use the internet — a slight drop from our survey in April 2009, which did not include Spanish interviews. At that time we found that 79% of English-speaking adults use the internet.
• 60% of American adults use broadband connections at home – a drop that is within the margin of error from 63% in April 2009.
• 55% of American adults connect to the internet wirelessly, either through a WiFi or WiMax connection via their laptops or through their handheld device like a smart phone.  This figure did not change in a statistically significant way during 2009.

These data come from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. The most recent survey was conducted from November 30 to December 27, 2009, using landline and cell phones and including interviews in Spanish. Some 2,258 adults were interviewed and the overall sample has a margin of error of ± 2 percentage points.

Internet Users

Not all Pew Internet Project surveys include Spanish interviews, so these survey results are not completely comparable to all previous Project surveys. This latest survey finds that 74% of adults use the internet, a figure that has not markedly changed since early 2006, when we measured the online population at 73%. There is some variation from survey to survey. Here is the current profile of internet users:¹

These latest figures add to a long-term picture in Pew Internet Project data that there has been little significant growth in the overall internet user population since 2006.

Broadband Users

Again, this survey included Spanish interviews and that somewhat decreased the number of Americans reporting that they have broadband connections in their homes. Some 60% of adult Americans said they had home broadband connections in this survey and here is a portrait of the home broadband users:²

Broadband use at home has risen fairly consistently since the Pew Internet Project began to measure it in 2000, but growth rate has slowed somewhat in the general population.

Wireless Users

Overall, 55% of Americans connect to the internet wirelessly at least on occasion. The Pew Internet Project measures wireless connectivity to the internet in several ways. First, it looks at those who connect via standard computer. Some 46% of adults now own laptop and, among them, 83% connect via WiFi and 28% connect via wireless broadband. In this survey, we also found that 83% of adults have cell phones or smartphones and, among them, 35% have accessed the internet via their phone. Here is the portrait of wireless users:

About the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The Project produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. The Project aims to be an authoritative source on the evolution of the internet through surveys that examine how Americans use the internet and how their activities affect their lives.

The Pew Internet Project takes no positions on policy issues related to the internet or other communications technologies. It does not endorse technologies, industry sectors, companies, nonprofit organizations, or individuals.

Methodology and Topline

This report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans’ use of the internet. The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International between November 30 and December 27, 2009, among a sample of 2,258 adults, age 18 and older.  Interviews were conducted in both English (n=2,197) and Spanish (n=61).  For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.  For results based internet users (n=1,676), the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.  In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting telephone surveys may introduce some error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

A combination of landline and cellular random digit dial (RDD) samples was used to represent all adults in the continental United States who have access to either a landline or cellular telephone. Both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International, LLC (SSI) according to PSRAI specifications.  Numbers for the landline sample were selected with probabilities in proportion to their share of listed telephone households from active blocks (area code + exchange + two-digit block number) that contained three or more residential directory listings. The cellular sample was not list-assisted, but was drawn through a systematic sampling from dedicated wireless 100-blocks and shared service 100-blocks with no directory-listed landline numbers.

New sample was released daily and was kept in the field for at least five days. The sample was released in replicates, which are representative subsamples of the larger population. This ensures that complete call procedures were followed for the entire sample.  At least 7 attempts were made to complete an interview at sampled telephone number. The calls were staggered over times of day and days of the week to maximize the chances of making contact with a potential respondent. Each number received at least one daytime call in an attempt to find someone available. For the landline sample, half of the time interviewers first asked to speak with the youngest adult male currently at home. If no male was at home at the time of the call, interviewers asked to speak with the youngest adult female. For the other half of the contacts interviewers first asked to speak with the youngest adult female currently at home. If no female was available, interviewers asked to speak with the youngest adult male at home. For the cellular sample, interviews were conducted with the person who answered the phone. Interviewers verified that the person was an adult and in a safe place before administering the survey. Cellular sample respondents were offered a post-paid cash incentive for their participation. All interviews completed on any given day were considered to be the final sample for that day.

Non-response in telephone interviews produces some known biases in survey-derived estimates because participation tends to vary for different subgroups of the population, and these subgroups are likely to vary also on questions of substantive interest. In order to compensate for these known biases, the sample data are weighted in analysis. The demographic weighting parameters are derived from a special analysis of the most recently available Census Bureau’s March 2009 Annual Social and Economic Supplement. This analysis produces population parameters for the demographic characteristics of adults age 18 or older. These parameters are then compared with the sample characteristics to construct sample weights. The weights are derived using an iterative technique that simultaneously balances the distribution of all weighting parameters.

Following is the full disposition of all sampled telephone numbers:

The disposition reports all of the sampled telephone numbers ever dialed from the original telephone number samples. The response rate estimates the fraction of all eligible respondents in the sample that were ultimately interviewed. At PSRAI it is calculated by taking the product of three component rates:

• Contact rate – the proportion of working numbers where a request for interview was made
• Cooperation rate – the proportion of contacted numbers where a consent for interview was at least initially obtained, versus those refused
• Completion rate – the proportion of initially cooperating and eligible interviews that were completed

Thus the response rate for the landline sample was 19.5 percent. The response rate for the cellular sample was 18.8 percent.

Click here to view the topline (PDF).