Pew Research Center: Americans Prefer Internet Over TV in Recent Survey

If you had to choose between the two, would you prefer to be without the Internet or television? A recent Pew Research Center survey asked that exact question to a selected pool of participants.

The survey revealed that popularity in television has decreased since the last survey was conducted in 2006. A total of 35% of all United States adults said that it would be very hard to give up television as opposed to the Internet, compared with 44% in 2006. This 9% decrease gave rise to a 15% increase in Internet popularity, with 53% of U.S. adults saying it would be very hard to give up the web over television, compared with 38% back in 2006.

Let's jump back about 20 years and examine the unprecedented growth in the World Wide Web and technology as a whole. A Pew study conducted back in 1995 showed that only 14% of U.S. adults used the Internet, a PC, or a mobile device. Additionally, only 29% of adults used the Internet daily back in 2000. Fast-forward to 2014 and those percentages are dwarfed. Now, 87% of U.S. adults use the Internet, PC, or mobile device and 71% use the Internet on a daily basis.

The rise of technology, especially computers and the Internet, has been sometimes viewed as an impediment to society, contributing to less social interactions and more introverted behavior. However, the Pew survey numbers show an overwhelming majority of Americans (75%) who believe that the Web is a good thing for society.

But that same question was not asked about the use of cell phones, which have perhaps further exacerbated poor sociable activity. A total of 90% of adults have a cell phone and 58% have a smartphone, which is startling because the children of each subsequent generation are being introduced to this technology at an earlier age. By the time they are adults, these percentages are likely to surpass the already prominent ones.

To read more about this Pew Research Center study, visit this Yahoo! News article as well as this Discovery News article.