The project, Surveying the Digital Future, has been covered on this site before and currently records six years of longitudinal research to comprise an absolutely unique database that completely captures broadband at home, the wireless Internet, on-line media, user-generated content and, now, social networking.
Most importantly, the project has been able to document the major shifts in social communication & personal connections on the Net that many of us have been predicting and anticipating.
Is the online world as important to Internet users as the real world? Large numbers of Internet users hold such strong views about their online communities that they compare the value of their online world to their real-world communities, according to the study.
Among a broad range of findings about rapidly-evolving methods for online communication, the Digital Future Project found that 43% of Internet users who are members of online communities say that they “feel as strongly” about their virtual community as they do about their real world communities.
“More than a decade after the portals of the World Wide Web opened to the public, we are now witnessing the true emergence of the Internet as the powerful personal and social phenomenon we knew it would become,” said Jeffrey Cole, director of the Digital Future Center.
“The Internet has been a source of entertainment, information, and communication since the Web became available to the American public in 1994,” said Cole. “However, in 2006 we are beginning to measure real growth and discover new directions for the Internet as a comprehensive tool that Americans are using to touch the world.”
The Report found that Internet use is growing and evolving as an instrument for personal engagement – through blogs, personal Web sites, and online communities.
The Digital Future Project also found that involvement in online communities leads to off-line actions. More than one-fifth of online community members (20.3%) take actions off-line at least once a year that are related to their online community. (An “online community” is defined as a group that shares thoughts or ideas, or works on common projects, through electronic communication only.)
Participation in online communities leads to social activism. Almost two thirds of online community members who participate in social causes through the Internet (64.9%) say they are involved in causes that were new to them when they began participating on the Internet. And more than 40% (43.7 percent) of online community members participate more in social activism since they started participating in online communities.
A significant majority of members of online communities (56.6%) log into their community at least once a day. Online communities are online havens for interaction among members. In 2006, 70.4% of online community members say they sometimes or always interact with other members of their community while logged in.
Internet usage is growing dramatically as larger percentages of Internet users are going online to post information, whether on a blog, posting photos, or maintaining a personal Web site. But you already knew that!
