A majority of journalists polled by Pew Research Center (55%) say that not every side of a story deserves equal coverage in reporting the news and when it comes to achieving greater racial diversity in their newsrooms, a minority say it is a big priority where they work.

That 55% not favoring equal coverage is compared to the 76% of the U.S. public at large who say journalists should always try to provide such coverage.

And while a majority of journalists (67%) said their news organizations have achieved “sufficient” gender diversity, only 32% say that is the case for racial and ethnic diversity and less than half (42%) say that addressing diversity and inclusion issues is a “major priority” in their newsrooms.

Social media appears to be a double-edged sword in the hands of journalists and their audiences.

A strong majority (87%) of journalists surveyed said social media has either a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” impact on promoting their news stories, and 79% said it helps them connect with their audience and find sources. But almost one-third (67%) said that social media has either a very negative or somewhat negative impact on the state of journalism and only 18% said it has a positive impact on journalism.

In a related issue, 42% of journalists said they have been harassed or threatened in the past year, and of those, 78% said the harassment came through some type of social media.

The survey was conducted among 11,889 journalists Feb. 1-13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point. The survey of the general public was among 10,441 U.S. adults March 7-13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. ▪️

Despite growing concerns about the amount of misleading information on social media, almost one-third of Americans surveyed get news from Facebook and a sizable number from other sites.

That is according to a new Pew Research Center survey of users of 10 prominent social media sites.

Also Read: NAB Launches Trusted Local News Campaign

Next most newsy was YouTube, with 22% of respondents saying they get news there, followed by Twitter at 13%, Instagram at 11% and Reddit at 7%.

Rounding out the news usage of the other five sites survey respondents were asked about were TikTok, 6%; LinkedIn, 4%; Snapchat, 4%; WhatsApp, 3% and Twitch, 1%.

The survey found that “a sizable portion” of U.S. adults (48%) say they get news “sometimes” or “often” from social media sites.

Pew found some demographic differences in online news consumption. White adults make up the majority of regular news consumers of Facebook (60%) and Reddit (54%), while only 36% of Instagram news consumers were white. Facebook also skews female, with women comprising 64% of regular news consumers versus 33% for men.

There is a also a definite political skew for social media, with the majority of news consumers being Democrats and Democratic leaners. Pew said that may be because social-media news consumers are relatively young. None of the 10 sites surveyed has regular news consumers who are more likely to be Republican or lean Republican.

The study was based on a survey conducted from July 26 to Aug. 8, 2021, among 11,178 U.S. adults who are part of the center’s American Trends Panel. The report also explores how often Americans are turning to social media for news compared to 2020.

Early media coverage of President Joe Biden has been slightly more negative than positive, according to a Pew Research analysis released on the eve of the President's first 100 days in office, but that was driven by overwhelmingly negative press from right-leaning media outlets.

The study, covering Biden's first 60 days, combined a content analysis* of media coverage (on broadcast, cable, online and in print) with a survey conducted March 8-14 among 12,045 adults (with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points). All survey respondents were members of the Center’s American Trends Panel.

The study found that 32% of the stories about the Biden administration "offered negative assessments," compared to 23% positive ones, with 45% judged to be neither positive nor negative.

Also Read: Survey: Fox News Remains 'Cable Superpower' with Republicans

But Pew found that 78% of stories from outlets with predominantly right-leaning audiences were negative. Liberal-leaning outlets had two-thirds higher audience members self-identified as liberal Democrats.

Among left-leaning media, only 19% of the stories were "negative assessments" and only 24% among outlets with a mix of outlooks (media outlets with about the same numbers of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans in their audiences).

Also Read: Biden Infrastructure Bill Could Be Final Nail in DirecTV-Dish Merger Coffin

Other key takeaways from the survey:

The content analysis revealed that COVID-19 was some element in 72% of the stories about the Biden Administration's early days, including 96% of the stories about the economy and virtually 100% of healthcare stories.

Stories about Biden tended focus on policy rather than leadership and character, the reverse of what a similar study found for coverage of the early days of the Trump Administration. About two-thirds (65%) of Biden stories were framed by policy and agenda issues and 35% on leadership and character. For Trump, only 26% were about policy and agenda and a whopping 74% about leadership and character.

* "For the content analysis portion of the report, news content was collected and studied from the television broadcasts of four cable news networks (CNN, FOX, MSNBC, Newsmax), four major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS), and radio broadcasts of NPR and the two highest rated talk radio shows focused on political affairs and current events, according to Talkers.com (The Sean Hannity Show and The Mark Levin Show)."

About half of the respondents to a new study said that they "often" or "sometimes" get news from social media, with Facebook cited as the top source.

Also Read: Majority Sees Bias in Chosen News Outlet's Election Coverage

That is according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 7 among 9,220 adults, al part of its American Trends Panel.

A little more than a third (36%) said that they regularly get news from Facebook, followed by 23% who said they get it from YouTube and 15% from Twitter. Rounding out the top 10 social media sites that are regular sources of news were Instagram (11% of respondents), Reddit (6%), Snapchat (4%), LinkedIn (4%), TikTok (3%), WhatsApp (3%), Tumblr (1%) and Twitch (1%).

But for all that social media news grazing, less than a third (29%) said that the news they got there helped them better understand current events, while almost a quarter (23%) say it has actually made them more confused by current events.

Also Read: Social Media News Consumers Less Engaged

Some sites are newsier than others. For example, says Pew, while 25% of adults use Twitter, over half of those (59%) said they are getting news regularly from the site, while less than a third (32%) of the 74% who are regular YouTube users said they get news from the site.

The margin of error on the survey is plus or minus 1.7 percentage points.

Two thirds of American adults polled (67%) said that the sources of news they turn to have presented biased views of the election. Specifically, they said those outlets had "presented factual information that favors one side of an issue in coverage of the 2020 election."

That is according to a new Pew Research Center survey that also found that more than half (56%) of respondents said those outlets had published breaking news without fully verifying it, and that 37% said those outlets made up stuff to mislead the public.

That comes as news outlets are being advised in some quarters to do something against their 24-hour-news cycle grain in reporting on the Nov. 3 election--be patient and don't call states or races too quickly.

Related: Pew Survey Finds Social Media Political News Consumers Are Less Engaged

The survey was conducted Oct. 6-12 among 10,059 adults, more than 80% of whom are registered voters. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 1.7 percentage points.

Almost six in 10 (59%) said that "made-up information that is intended to mislead" causes a lot of confusion about the presidential race.

Republicans appear to have less trust in their own favorite news sources. About twice as many registered voters who back Trump said they think the news sources they turn to most often report made-up information intended to mislead, compared to only 22% of Biden supporters who said that about their favorite news outlets, while 59% of Trump backers said their outlets of choice report breaking info that hasn't been verified, vs. 50% of Biden supporters who said that.

The vast majority of the survey respondents (85%) said that Trump and Biden supporters can't agree on "basic facts about important issues," which does not bode well for healing the current political divisions (When each side was asked, 89% of Trump voters said they disagree on basic facts, and 91% of Biden voters). As troubling, 80% also said that Americans tend to get different "facts" depending on which news sources they turn to.

The rise in retransmission fees has more than compensated for the COVID-19 hit on TV station revenue, at least in the early months of the pandemic. That is according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. The report also found that ad revenue for network news--ABC, CBS, and NBC--were actually up in 2Q 2020, while cable news revenue held steady, though only thanks to Fox, whose large increases covered declines at CNN and MSNBC.

The broadcast TV study was based on second-quarter ad revenue (the quarter ending June 30, 2020) for Sinclair, Tegna, Nexstar*, Gray and Scripps, compared to second quarter 2019 revenue. The overall report was based on financial data from the Securities and Exchange Commission for publicly traded companies, and data from Kantar.

While the stories of individual stations undoubtedly vary, Pew found that while ad revenue was down for 2Q 2020 from 2019, the increase in retransmission consent fees "more than made up for it."

The study said that across those five TV station group operators, which together have over 600 TV stations, retrans fees were up "sharply" in 2Q 2020, by 37% or a total $87.3 million in median revenue, more than covering the median ad revenue decline of 24% to $67.9 million. Sinclair represented the biggest boost in fees, a whopping 175%, with Scripps second at 55% and Tegna getting the median position at 37%.

The ad total for the three network nightly newscasts was up 11% in 2Q 2020 over the comparable 2019 quarter, with ABC pulling most of the weight, up a whopping 21% to NBC's 7% and CBS's 3%.

For the cable news outlets studied, total ad revenue was up 2% for the quarter, year over year, to $422 million, but Fox News was doing the heavy lifting to lift the average. Driven by big ratings gains, Fox news had its biggest Q2 year-over-year revenue increase in more than a decade, up 41%, while CNN ad revenue fell 14% and MSNBC 27%, despite higher ratings for both in the quarter, with CNN more than doubling its prime time audience over 2019.

*Because Pew is comparing revenues to second quarter 2019, before Nexstar's September 2019 merger with Tribune, former Tribune station revenues have been backed out of the Nexstar 2020 numbers so it is an apples-to-apples comparison.

A solid majority of Americans said social media companies have too much influence in politics and almost half said they need more regulation.

That is according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

The survey was released in advance of a July 27 hearing in the House Judiciary Committee--"Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 6: Examining the Dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Alphabet (Google)"--where their respective CEO's Jess Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai are expected to testify.

The committee has been looking into Big Tech and antitrust and whether social media giants bought their way to monopoly by purchasing small companies before they became big competitors and before they became give enough to trigger antitrust reviews.

The survey found that 72% of respondents said social media companies have too much "power and influence" over politics (the survey was conducted June 16-22). Only 21% said they had "about the right amount" of influence and only 6% said they had too little.

The question was asked this way: "How much power and influence in politics today do social media companies have?" so it could be read as either the power their platforms exert via the third party content they host or their clout as multi-billion companies with multi-million lobbying budgets. 

While more Republicans (82%) than Democrats (63%) subscribe to the "too much power" theory, that is still solid majorities of both. Not surprising since regulating the edge is a pretty bipartisan issue. It's how to do it where the trains don't meet.

The study found that 47% of respondents say the government should be regulating major tech companies more than they do now, while only 11% said it should be less and 39% said it is about right.

Currently, the primary regulation of Big Tech is through merger reviews and the Federal Trade Commission's power to go after anticompetitive conduct through settlements or suits.

The survey comprised 4,708 members of Pew's American Trends Panel, "a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults [who] participate via self-administered web surveys." The margin of error is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.

It will come as no surprise to most of the shelter-at-home population that a vast majority of people in a new Pew survey (87%) said the Internet has been important (34%) or essential (53%) to them personally during the pandemic.

But perhaps somewhat surprisingly, a clear majority (62%) say they don't think that it is the federal government's responsibility to make sure that all Americans have a high-speed internet connection at home during the COVID-19 outbreak, even though it may hinder how they perform everyday tasks in the "new normal." 

Related: The Latest on COVID-19's Impact on Industry 

There was a partisan divide over the digital divide, but still only about half of Democrats (52%) thought it was the government's job to insure a high-speed connection, and even fewer (45%) it was government's job to insure cellphone service. For Republicans, those were 22% and 21%, respectively.  

Less than a third of the respondents (28%) said they worry about paying for their high-speed connection, and about a third of those with smartphones worry about paying their cellphone bills, though that worry over indexes for Hispanic and Black respondents and those with lower incomes. For example, more than half (54%) of Hispanic respondents said they worry about being able to pay.  

Related: Groups Petition Congress for Broadband Billions 

Hundreds of members of Congress and hundreds of civil society groups have been pressing Congress for billions of dollars in funding to close the digital divide and "homework gap" ASAP and make sure that lower income Americans and students.  

For one thing, it is problematic for schools to move online if not all students have equal access to the internet or have to un-shelter to find a hotspot. Roughly one fifth (22%) of parents with children having to "home school" as it were said it was very or somewhat likely their kids will not be able to finish schoolwork at home because they don't have a "reliable" internet connection.  

About the same one in five parents (21%) said it will be hard for their kids to study remotely because they don't have access to a home computer, and even more (37%) said that it was the school's responsibility to provide all students with a laptop or tablet if they were expected to attend school together, apart.  

The study was conducted April 7-12 among 4,917 U.S. adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

Almost a third of the people polled for a new study of media coverage of the coronavirus said it was either developed intentionally in a laboratory (23%), or unintentionally in a lab (6%) or that the whole pandemic is made up. 

That is according to the latest Pew Research Center Election News Pathways Project survey. 

Republicans were almost twice as likely as Democrats to say that the virus was created intentionally in a lab, said Pew. 

Republicans are also much more likely to say a vaccine will be available "within a few months" (28% Republicans vs. 17% Democrats). Most health officials put the timeline at a year to 18 months. 

There is also a partisan divide over the seriousness of the threat. 

According to Pew, 59% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said it is a major threat to the U.S. population as a whole, while only a 33% of Republicans and Republican leaners said so. 

The majority of the respondents gave the media "fairly high" marks for coverage, with 30% saying they were covering it "somewhat well" and 40% "very well." But in the same breath, or at least the same survey, a majority also said the news media have exaggerated the risks of the virus, with 37% saying they have greatly exaggerated them and 25% saying they have slightly done so. Only 8% said they have underplayed the seriousness, with the balance (about 30%) saying they have gotten it about right. 

It may just be the Dr. Anthony Fauci effect, but 83% of respondents said they are either "very" or "somewhat "confident that CDC officials are doing a good job, including 40% who said they are "very confident." 

*According to Pew: "The survey was conducted March 10-16 among 8,914 U.S. adults who are members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1.6 percentage points for results based on the full sample."

Fox News dominates among Republican and Republican-leaning viewers who get their political news only from outlets with like-minded audiences, while Democrats and leaners name multiple like-minded networks.

That is according to the latest snapshot from a Pew Research Center report on media and the 2020 election. It is based on a survey of 12,043 U.S. adults, all members of Pew's American Trends Panel. The survey was conducted Oct. 29-Nov. 11, 2019.

Among news consumers who get their news exclusively from outlets with like-minded viewers, Fox news claims 70% of that audience. For Democrat and left-leaning political consumers, CNN is the top outlet, but with only 21%, followed by NPR with 18% and the New York Times with 9%.

The Republicans in that "news bubble" as Pew calls that like-minded viewership cohort, 60% say they rely on their main source "far more" than other like-minded sources, while for Democrats only 30% said that about their main source.

Pew found that Democrats in a left-leaning bubble tend to be younger, well educated and less religiously observant, while right-leaning, attend to be less educated, older and religiously observant. 

Three quarters of respondents (74%) express little or no confidence that tech companies--Facebook, Twitter, Google--will prevent misuse of their platforms to influence the 2020 election. 

An even greater percentage (78%) said they should have a responsibility to prevent that misuse.  

That is according to a new Pew Research Center survey. 

The distrust of tech was bipartisan, with 76% of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents saying they have little or no confidence, while 74% of Democrats and leaners said that was the case. 

Those findings were based on a survey Jan. 6-19 among 12,638 adults in Pew's Americans Trends Panel. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.3 percentage points. 

It will come as a surprise to few, but media polarization has increased in the past half decade and, a new Pew Research report asserts, appears to have been driven by Republican's increasing distrust of the media. Pew will track that divide as the nation ultimately comes together at the polls to pick then next President and slate of elected officials nationwide. 

Of the 30 news sources* cited in the survey, "U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided," none were trusted by more than half of the respondents. 

That is according to a survey of 12,043 U.S. adults, all members of Pew's American Trends online panel, conducted in October and November of 2019. They were asked which news outlets they relied on and trusted for news about politics and the upcoming 2020 election. 

Certainly the current head of the Republican party, President Donald Trump, has done his part in fomenting that distrust, regularly branding the mainstream media as political enemies and fake news.  

Republicans said they distrusted 20 of the 30 sources cited, with only seven of those news sources them generating more trust than distrust led by Fox News, with 65% saying they trust that outlet. That outlet "towers above all others" among Republicans as a go-to source for political news, Pew said. 

CNN was the most trusted by Democrats, with 67% saying that was the case. 

A big difference is that while no other news sources comes close to rivaling Fox among Republicans, a number of sources besides CNN are highly trusted and frequently used by Democrats. For example, two thirds of liberal Democrats trust the New York Times, while just 10% of conservative Republicans do. 

Between the 2014 study and this latest one, Republicans’ distrust increased for 14 of the 20 sources that were the same in both years, including distrust of CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times (all particular targets of the President's animus). 

The survey found that Republicans and Republican-leaning independents view many mainstream media outlets as untrustworthy, the same outlets Democrats and leaners mostly see as credible. 

Compared to a similar study in 2014, Republicans are even more alienated from most of the "more established" sources, while Democrats remain confident in them, an in some cases even more confident than before. 

One big takeaway is that just because people use a news source does not mean they necessarily trust it. While 24% of Republicans said they got news from CNN "in the past week," some four-in-ten who did said they distrusted CNN. Similarly, of the 23% of Democrats who got political news from Fox nearly three-in-ten (27%) said they distrusted it. 

The survey also marks the launch of a Pew Research Center Election News Pathways initiative that will extend through the 2020 election and explore how American's news habits and attitudes affect their perception of that election. 

There will be five more surveys conducted as part of the initiative, all drawn from Pew's American Trends Panel. 

Pew will make that raw data available online for independent analysis via an online tool, API and data set, updated approximately every other month. It will also issue weekly (Wednesdays at 10 a.m.) email alerts with analysis that news outlets can use in their reporting on the election. Pew will also hold workshops for journalists interested in learning more about the initiative.

 * The 30 outlets polled were: ABC News, BBC, Breitbart, Business Insider, BuzzFeed, CBS News, CNN, Daily Caller, Fox News, HuffPost, MSNBC, NBC News, Newsweek, New York Post, NPR, PBS, Politico, Rush Limbaugh Show (radio), Sean Hannity Show (radio), The Guardian, The Hill, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Time, Univision, USA Today, Vice, Vox, Washington Examiner. 

The percentage of respondents who said their primary online access devices is mobile has effectively doubled since 2013, and many of those are using mobile as a substitute, rather than a complement, to wired broadband service.

That is according to a new Pew Research Center study, which found that 37% us their smartphone to go online, compared with 19% in 2013.

The trend is driven by younger demos, with a majority (58%) of those 18-29 says the mostly go online using their phone. But the 30-49 demo is not far behind at 47%, which, again, is essentially double 2013's 24%.

And among the 27% of respondents who said they don't have a fixed broadband connection, 45% say that is because their mobile device fills the broadband bill. According to the study, "the share of non-broadband users who say their smartphone is the most important reason for not having a high-speed internet connection where they live has nearly doubled over the same time period, from 12% to 23%."

At the same time, affordability is not as big a factor in not having a home fixed broadband connection. The study found that the percentage of people who cited cost as the reason dropped from 33% to 21%.

But 80% of those who do not now have a home fixed broadband connection say they are not interested in getting one.

The study was based on interviews conducted Jan. 8 to Feb. 7, 2019, among 1,502 U.S.adults 18-plus. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.85 percentage points.

Turns out the 18-49 demo is better at distinguishing between fact and opinions in the news, an important skill as the two are more increasingly combined, driven in part by attacks on the press by President Trump that have news outlets fighting back.

That is according to a new analysis of a Pew Survey Center study conducted Feb. 22-March 4, 2018, the results of which have just been published. Pew read respondents a series of statements and they had to place them in either the fact or opinion category.

The poll found that about a third (32%) of 18-49-year-olds correctly identified all five factual statements, while only 20% of those 50-plus could do the same.

When respondents incorrectly classified a factual statement as an opinion, said Pew, "they most often disagreed with the statement."

Almost half of the 18-49-year-olds (44%) identified all five of the opinion statements, while only a quarter (26%) of 50-plus did so.

Not only were the younger respondents better able to distinguish facts from opinion, they did so "regardless of the ideological appeal of the statements [see graphic]." Pew said the statements were meant to appeal to one side of the political spectrum or the other.

For example, "government is almost always wasteful and inefficient" for Republicans and "abortion should be legal in most cases" for the Dems.

Pew said that the younger demos' edge may be attributable to the fact that younger adults are less likely to identify strongly with a political party, or are more digitally savvy, which Pew says is tied to better classifying news statements.

But even accounting for that, says Pew, "[y]ounger adults are still better than their elders at deciphering factual from opinion news statements."

Pew polled 5,035 U.S. adults for the survey.

The digital divide between Latinos and whites is shrinking, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Since 2009, according to Pew, Latinos who say they use the Internet has grown by 20 percentage points, from 64% to 84%, while for whites the increase was from 80% to 89%, or fewer than 10 percentage points.

The biggest increase has come from Spanish-dominant Hispanics--almost doubled from 36% to 74%--and Hispanic immigrants, whose use has jumped from 51% to 78% since 2009.

There is no divide over what is the dominant Internet access tool: a mobile device.

The survey found that 80% of Latino adults access the 'net from a mobile device. That figure is 77% for blacks and 76% for whites.

The study was based on phone interviews with a representative sample of 1,500 Latino respondents 18-plus Oct. 21 - Nov. 30, 2015. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 points.

Consumers show a clear preference for getting news on a screen, and the TV screen still leads the way, though signs of a big generational shift are emerging.

Moreover, a majority of consumers believe news outlets are biased when covering political and social issues, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.

The survey found that 57% of all news consumers "often" get news from cable or broadcast TV networks and local stations. Among those, local TV news remains the top draw, at 46%, followed by cable networks at 31% and broadcast network news at 30%.

Second after TV, 38% of respondents said they often get news from social media or websites/apps. Radio followed, cited by 25% of respondents, with newspapers trailing the pack at 20%.

When respondents' age is factored in, however, the screen preferences start moving online.

While 72% of those 50-64 often get news on TV, only 27% of 18-29 year-olds said they often get news from TV. By contrast, 50% of 18-29s said they often get news online, while that figure was only 29% among 50-64 year-olds.

Print is in the most precarious position, the study suggests, since those who prefer to watch news still favor TV over online, while those who prefer to read it are migrating to reading it on a screen, and increasingly on a mobile screen.

News consumers are skeptical of they outlets the frequent.

Only about two in 10 respondents said they have "a lot" of trust in the information they get, with social media the least trusted, at only 4%.

As to how that information is being presented, only 24% said that news organizations covering political and social issues "deal fairly with all sides," while 74% said news outlets "tend to favor one side."

The study found that while 54% of news consumers got at least some news on a mobile device in 2013, that number is now 72%.

The study was conducted in two parts. The first survey was conducted Jan. 12-Feb. 8, 2016, among 4,654 U.S. adults 18-plus who are members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. The second part comprised 14 online surveys Feb. 24-March 1, 2016, with 2,078 panelists participating, answering at least 10 of the 14 surveys.

A large portion of Americans appear willing to share their personal information in exchange for a product or service, but some offers are more attractive than others.

That is the takeaway from a new Pew Research Center report based on a survey of 461 U.S. adults and 80 participants in nine focus groups on attitudes toward what Pew billed as the "key tradeoff" of the digital economy.

Pew offered up six hypothetical tradeoffs involving sharing varying degrees of personal data and asked respondents whether that tradeoff was acceptable.

The majority (54%) said they were OK with facial recognition cameras in the workplace to catch thieves of employees' personal belongings, with the footage staying on file as long as the company wished, and even if it were used to measure employee attendance and performance. Only 24% said that would not be acceptable, with 21% saying it would depend on circumstances. There were no statistically significant differences in answers by age, gender or income.

Far fewer would trade personal data for receiving targeted advertising in the scenario presented by Pew. That scenario was free access to a social media platform that allowed for interaction with other alumni for an upcoming reunion in exchange for creating a profile and supplying a photo that would be used by the site to deliver tailored advertising.

Only 33% said that tradeoff would be acceptable, while 51% said it was not and 15% said it depended on the circumstances. The generational breakdown is telling. Four of 10 under 50 said they were OK with that, but only 24% of those over 50 said it was acceptable.

“Many policy makers and companies are anxious to know where Americans drawn the line on privacy – when they will resist privacy intrusions and when they are comfortable with sharing personal data,” said Lee Rainie, director of Internet, Science, and Technology research at Pew and author of the report. “These findings show how people’s decisions are often context-specific and contingent. A phrase that summarizes their attitudes is, ‘It depends.’ Most are likely to consider options on a case-by-case basis, rather than apply hard-and-fast privacy rules.”

Turns out that Hillary Clinton is in the minority when she talks about favoring a Snapchat app that automatically deletes messages (she is under the gun over allegedly classified emails on her server), but that may be a factor of age.

In a new Pew Research Center survey, only 17% of respondents with smart phones use apps like Snapchat or Wickr, which do not preserve messages, compared with 36% who use messaging apps such as Kik or iMessage, which do.

But those numbers change markedly among younger demos. Roughly half of smartphone users ages 18-30 use a messaging app, and 41% use a message-deleting app.

Pew pointed out that such apps are free and, when used with WiFi, don't use up SMS data. The study also noted that message-deleting apps offer more private online socializing than Facebook or Twitter.

The study found that use of Pinterest and Instagram has doubled since 2012, with 31% using Pinterest, up from 15% in 2012, and 28% using Instagram, up from 13% in 2012.

Growth has leveled off, however. None of the social media platforms in the survey had significant increases in the number of users between September 2014 and April 2015, though among those who already use them, frequency of use had increased significantly.

Facebook continues to dominate among social media sites, with 72% of online respondents saying they use it, 70% daily and 43% several times a day.

The study found that 15% of Internet users are on discussion forums including reddit, Digg or Slashdot, while 10% use Tumblr.

The survey was conducted March 17-April 12, 2015, among 1,907 adults 18-plus (of whom 1,612 are Internet users). The margin of error for all respondents was plus-or-minus 2.6 percentage points.

If a new Pew Research study is any indication, broadband deployment is key to friendship as well as entrepreneurship.

A just-released study of 1,060 teens ages 13-17 found that a majority (57%) had made a friend online, with 29% saying they had made almost a half-dozen friends. Not surprisingly, the majority of those friendships (64%) started on social media sites, though gaming was a big draw for boys.

But as the Las Vegas business community likes to brag about its city, what happens online tends to remain online. Only 20% of online teens said they have met their online friend(s) in person.

The survey found boys were more likely to make online friends than girls (61% vs. 52%). But girls were more likely to find their friends on social media (78%) than boys (52%). Boys tend to meet their friends gaming (57%), while relatively few girls (13%) do so.

On the other hand, 84% of boys said they played online games compared with 59% of girls.

“Teens still spend substantial amounts of time with friends in-person, especially at school,” said Amanda Lenhart, associate director for research at the Pew Research Center and lead author of the report. “But mobile phones, social media and, for boys, online video gaming have become deeply enmeshed in creating and maintaining teen friendships."

In fact, the study found that while only 25% said they interacted in person with their friends on a daily basis, 55% said they did so via texting, 27% said they IM'd friends daily, and 23% said they met up on social media sites.

The study found some downsides to all that sharing. Among those findings:

-- 88% of teen social media users believe people share too much information about themselves on social media;

-- 42% have had someone post things on social media about them that they cannot change or control;

-- 21% report feeling worse about their own life because of what they see from other friends on social media;

-- 40% report feeling pressure to post only content that makes them look good to others; and

-- 39% say they feel pressure to post content that will be popular and get lots of comments or likes."

Cyber attacks on communications networks will likely increase in the next 10 years, and a majority of experts polled (61%) by Pew Research Center say those will include a major attack somewhere in the world by 2025 that causes tens of billions of dollars in damage and "widespread harm to a nation’s security and capacity to defend itself and its people?" The other 39% of respodents believe there would be no such attack, with mitigation efforts keeping pace with the bad guys.

That is according to the Pew Research Center's latest "Digital Life in 2025" report, released Wednesday (Oct. 29). It is the latest offering in its ongoing project saluting the 25th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web.

The "canvas" -- it is not a randomized survey -- is based on 1,642 respondents, billed as "experts and Internet builders," all of whom were asked for predictions about the future of cybersecurity threats.

“Cyber attacks are already pervasive, and it is trivial even for children to acquire the means to inflict serious damage," said software engineer Robert McGrath who helped develop the World Wide Web. "The United States has already attacked other countries, and other deliberate attacks are suspected. Losses are already in the tens of billions...It is only a matter of time before there is a serious incident, i.e., one that journalists recognize as an event.”

One software tech CEO active in Internet standards development (respondents did not have to provide their names) warned that the major attack could be a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse attack that could do a number on cloud storage systems that would require a long and complex recovery period. On the other side of the major attack issue was telecom engineer Peter McCann. "The potential for destructive terrorist acts carried out through computer networks has been dramatically over-hyped," he said. "To the extent that computers are put in control of life-critical processes, there will be air gaps and safeguards in place that prevent malicious outside instructions from interfering in their operations.”

Darel Preble, founder of the Space Solar Power Institute, suggested concerns about the security of the power grid might be misplaced. "The major damage to our national power grids is not from cyber attacks but from natural causes—squirrels, ants, ice, falling trees, wind, and simple human error," he said.

Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, also sees more danger in mother nature than malicious actors. “There will certainly continue to be cyber attacks around the world. However, I don't think that such attacks will involve losses of tens of billions of dollars," he said. "For that to happen we would have to see systems down for several days. Katrina was the costliest US hurricane and it did about $100 billion of damages. Most hurricanes have been in the $20 billion range. I don't see cyber attacks coming anywhere close to hurricanes in terms of the associated property losses.”

Pew summarized the key themes put forth by both camps.

For those who said there will be a major cyber attack, or attacks, causing widespread harm, the reasoning was:

1) "Internet-connected systems are inviting targets. The Internet is a critical infrastructure for national defense activities, energy resources, banking/finance, transportation, and essential daily-life pursuits for billions of people. The tools already exist to mount cyber attacks now and they will improve in coming years—but countermeasures will improve, too.

2) "Security is generally not the first concern in the design of Internet applications. It seems as if the world will only wake up to these vulnerabilities after catastrophe occurs.

3) "Major cyber attacks have already happened, for instance the Stuxnet worm and attacks in nations where mass opposition to a regime has taken to the streets. Similar or worse attacks are a given."

4) "Cyber attacks are a looming challenge for businesses and individuals. Certain sectors, such as finance and power systems, are the most vulnerable. There are noteworthy divides between the prepared and the unprepared."

For those saying they did not think there would be a major attack, their reasoning was as follows:

1) "There is steady progress in security fixes. Despite the Internet’s vulnerabilities, a distributed network structure will help thwart the worst attacks. Security standards will be upgraded. The good guys will still be winning the cyber security arms race by 2025.

2) "Deterrence works, the threat of retaliation will keep bad actors in check, and some bad actors are satisfied with making only small dents in the system so they can keep mining a preferred vulnerability and not have it closed off.

3) "Hype over cyber attacks is an exaggeration of real dangers fostered by the individuals and organizations that will gain the most from creating an atmosphere of fear."