Description
FOR RELEASE APRIL 30, 2018
BY Aaron Smith and Kenneth Olmstead
FOR MEDIA OR OTHER INQUIRIES:
Aaron Smith, Associate Director, Research
Tom Caiazza, Communications Manager
202.419.4372
www.pewresearch.org
RECOMMENDED CITATION
Pew Research Center, April 2018, “Declining Majority of
Online Adults Say the Internet Has Been Good for Society”
1
PEW RESEARCH CENTER
About Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes
and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. It conducts public
opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science
research. The Center studies U.S. politics and policy; journalism and media; internet, science and
technology; religion and public life; Hispanic trends; global attitudes and trends; and U.S. social
and demographic trends. All of the Center’s reports are available at www.pewresearch.org. Pew
Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder.
© Pew Research Center 2018
www.pewresearch.org
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PEW RESEARCH CENTER
Declining Majority of Online Adults Say the Internet Has
Been Good for Society
Americans tend to view the impact of the
internet and other digital technologies on their
own lives in largely positive ways, Pew Research
Center surveys have shown over the years. A
survey of U.S. adults conducted in January
2018 finds continuing evidence of this trend,
with the vast majority of internet users (88%)
saying the internet has, on balance, been a
mostly good thing for them personally.
But even as they view the internet’s personal
impact in a positive light, Americans have
grown somewhat more ambivalent about the
impact of digital connectivity on society as a
whole. A sizable majority of online adults (70%)
continue to believe the internet has been a good
thing for society. Yet the share of online adults
saying this has declined by a modest but still
significant 6 percentage points since early 2014,
when the Center first asked the question. This is
balanced by a corresponding increase (from 8%
to 14%) in the share of online adults who say
the internet’s societal impact is a mix of good
and bad. Meanwhile, the share saying the
internet has been a mostly bad thing for society
is largely unchanged over that time: 15% said
this in 2014, and 14% say so today.
Growing share of online adults say the
internet has been a mixed blessing for
society
% of online U.S. adults who say the following …
Source: Survey conducted Jan. 3-10, 2018.
“Declining Majority of Online Adults Say the Internet Has Been Good
for Society”
PEW RESEARCH CENTER
This shift in opinion regarding the ultimate social impact of the internet is particularly stark
among older Americans, despite the fact that older adults have been especially rapid adopters of
consumer technologies such as social media and smartphones in recent years. Today 64% of online
adults ages 65 and older say the internet has been a mostly good thing for society. That represents
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PEW RESEARCH CENTER
a 14-point decline from the 78% who said this in 2014. The attitudes of younger adults have
remained more consistent over that time: 74% of internet users ages 18 to 29 say the internet has
been mostly good for society, comparable to the 79% who said so in 2014.
As was true in our 2014 survey, college graduates are more likely than those with lower levels of
educational attainment to say the internet has had a positive impact on society (and less likely to
say it has had a negative impact). Among online adults with a college degree, 81% say the impact of
the internet on society has been mostly good and just 7% say it has been mostly bad. By contrast,
65% of those with a high school diploma or less say the internet has had a mostly good impact on
society, and 17% say its impact has been mostly bad.
Positive views of the internet are often tied to information access and connecting with
others; negative views are based on a wider range of issues
Those who think the internet has had a good impact on society tended to focus on two key issues,
according to follow-up items which allowed respondents to explain their views in their own words.
Most (62% of those with a positive view) mentioned how the internet makes information much
easier and faster to access. Meanwhile, 23% of this group mentioned the ability to connect with
other people, or the ways in which the internet helps them keep more closely in touch with friends
and family.
By contrast, those who think the internet is a bad thing for society gave a wider range of reasons
for their opinions, with no single issue standing out. The most common theme (mentioned by 25%
of these respondents) was that the internet isolates people from each other or encourages them to
spend too much time with their devices. These responses also included references to the spread
and prevalence of fake news or other types of false information: 16% mentioned this issue. Some
14% of those who think the internet’s impact is negative cited specific concerns about its effect on
children, while 13% argued that it encourages illegal activity. A small share (5%) expressed privacy
concerns or worries about sensitive personal information being available online.
One-in-five Americans are now ‘smartphone only’ internet users at home
These attitudinal changes are occurring in a broader landscape in which the access options
available to ordinary Americans are shifting dramatically. Most notably, fully one-in-five
Americans (20%) are now “smartphone only” internet users at home – that is, they own a
smartphone but do not subscribe to traditional broadband service where they live. This represents
a 7-point increase compared with data from 2015, when 13% of Americans were smartphone-only
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PEW RESEARCH CENTER
users. Roughly two-thirds of Americans (65%) say they subscribe to traditional broadband service
at home, similar to the 67% who said this in July 2015.1
As has consistently been true in
past surveys conducted by the
Center, those who rely on their
smartphones for home internet
service are disproportionately
less likely to have attended
college compared with those
with traditional broadband
service. They also report living
in lower-income households.
For instance, 31% of Americans
with an annual household
income of less than $30,000
are smartphone-only internet
users, more than three times
the share among those living in
households earning $75,000 or
more per year (9%). This
phenomenon is also notably
more prevalent among blacks
and Hispanics than among
whites.
One-in-five Americans own a smartphone, but do not
have traditional broadband service
% of U.S. adults who indicate that they have …
Broadband
at home
65%
Total
Smartphone, No broadband,
no broadband no smartphone
20%
15%
Ages 18-29
67
28
5
30-49
70
24
7
50-64
68
16
17
65+
50
10
40
White
72
14
14
Black
57
24
19
Hispanic
47
35
18
HS or less
48
26
25
Some college
68
21
12
College+
85
10
5
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