Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

Health information remains one of the most important subjects that internet users research online. Symptoms and treatments continue to dominate internet users' health searches, but food safety, drug safety, and pregnancy information are among eight new topics included in the current survey. In all, 80% of internet users gather health information online. Read more.

Daily Number: Internet Challenges for the Disabled - Pew Research Center

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Americans living with a disability are less likely than other adults to use the internet. According to a national survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in September 2010, 54% of adults living with a disability use the internet, compared with 81% of adults who report none of the disabilities listed in the survey. Two percent of American adults say they have a disability or illness that makes it harder or impossible for them to use the internet. The survey found that about one-in-four (27%) American adults live with a disability that interferes with activities of daily living. Statistically speaking, disability is associated with being older, less educated, and living in a lower-income household. By contrast, internet use is statistically associated with being younger, college-educated, and living in a higher-income household. People living with disability, once they are online, are also less likely than other internet users to have high-speed access or wireless access. The Pew Internet Project report provides context for the continuing conversation about who does -- and does not -- use the internet in the U.S., including a proposal to extend the enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act to include websites operated by certain entities. Read more

4 Easy Steps to Make Your Site More Usable to Older People

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by Tom Babinszki

When you find a huge population of Internet users, you definitely want to target them and make them want to visit your site. And one of the major groups that many web developers are aiming to target is that of the aging population.

More and more senior citizens are using the Internet at a regular basis. And no matter what your niche is, you can be sure that there will always be older people who would find your site and would want to read what you have in store.

This is more than enough reason to make your site more usable and accessible to the aging population. So to help you get started, here are 4 easy steps to make your site usable and accessible to older people.

Make Your Text Easy to Read

Apply Good Color Contrast

Make Everything Accessible Via the Keyboard

Caption Your Videos

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New Research: Internet Can Ease Depression Among Elderly

Posted by Shana Glickfield on 10-15-2009 in Home, News and Blog Clips

The Phoenix Center hosted an event today to discuss their new policy paper, which finds that Internet use makes a positive contribution to the mental well-being of America’s seniors. The FCC’s John Horrigan began the event with a short discussion of where we stand with broadband adoption. He has found in his research, both with the FCC and before that with Pew Internet, that broadband adoption is unevenly distributed among age demographics, with seniors falling below the national average. Horrigan believes it is critical to help with broadband adoption in this demographic not only for the reasons that the paper finds, but because the costs of digital exclusion are substantial and growing.

The author of Internet Use and Depression Among the Elderly is Dr. George Ford, Chief Economist for the Phoenix Center. Using a dataset of 7,000 elderly retired persons, Dr. Ford rated well-being in relation to Internet use, considering several variables including education, income and marital status. The research indicates that Internet use leads to about a 20% reduction in depression classification in this group. Dr. Ford noted that since depression is estimated to cost the U.S. about $100 billion annually, Internet use also offers substantial collateral economic benefits.

There were several advocacy organizations representing seniors in attendance at the event to weigh in on the findings. The National Council of the Aged found Dr. Ford’s connection of Internet communications helping reduce loneliness and thereby reducing depression to be consistent with their findings. AARP was excited about the research since they are increasingly moving their communications and information into online formats and need to continue to reach their target demographic. SeniorNet noted that they provide learning centers for older adults across the county and see the benefits of Internet use for seniors every day.

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Future of the Internet III: How the Experts See It

by Janna Quitney Anderson, Director, Imagining the Internet, Elon University and Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project December 14, 2008 A survey of internet leaders, activists and analysts shows they expect major technology advances as the phone becomes a primary device for online access, voice-recognition improves, artificial and virtual reality become more embedded in everyday life, and the architecture of the internet itself improves. Here are the key findings in a new report based on the survey of experts by the Pew Internet & American Life Project that asked respondents to assess predictions about technology and its roles in the year 2020:

• The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.
• The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.
• Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.
• Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing "arms race," with the "crackers" who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.
• The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.
• "Next-generation" engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.

H.R. 7200: Use the Internet to provide to patients and health care practitioners medical information

Introduced September 28, 2008 by Rep. Christopher Cannon [R-UT] and referred to the House Judiciary Committee TITLE I--Federal internet site for consolidation and translation of information on diseases and other conditions TITLE II--Patient and practititoner rights regarding practice of medicine TITLE III--Additional forums for exchange of health information TITLE IV--Legal immunity of drug and device companies

Homelessness Services: Web 2.0 Connects Providers

It’s the latest computer buzzword. But how can Web 2.0 be useful to service providers who work with people who are homeless? Young and well educated, but overworked and underpaid, providers operate in programs with few resources for expensive computer hardware. They are tech-savvy and computer literate, and they are ripe for SAMHSA’s Homelessness Resource Center (HRC), a virtual community that shares state-of-the-art knowledge and promising practices to prevent and end homelessness.

E-Patients: Chronically Ill Seek Health Information Online

from article in News@pewresearch eNewsletter by Susannah Fox, Associate Director, Pew Internet & American Life ProjectAugust 26, 2008 This latest survey confirms that information gathering has become a habit for many Americans, particularly those in the 55% of households with broadband connections. Home broadband has now joined educational attainment, household income and age as the strongest predictors of internet activity. For example, 78% of home broadband users look online for health information, compared with 70% of home dial-up users. Home broadband users are twice as likely as home dial-up users to do health research on a typical day -- 12% vs. 6%.

Internet users living with a disability or chronic disease are more likely than other internet users to be wide-ranging online health researchers and to report significant impacts from those searches. For example, 75% of e-patients with a chronic condition say their last health search affected a decision about how to treat an illness or condition, compared with 55% of other e-patients.