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Every year, the Annenberg School for Communication (one of my alma maters) at the University of Southern California runs a study on the impact of the Internet on Americans.  This year’s Center for the Digital Future 2010 report results had a few surprises, along with plenty of expected findings:

• While Internet usage has hit a new high in the U.S. (82%), a full 62% of those who are not online say they’re not likely to start anytime soon.  Reasons given have evolved over time from “no computer” or “no Internet connection” (which are rarely given anymore) to “no interest” or “not useful.”  So while a large majority of Americans are online, many of those who are not don’t see a reason to join the party. 
  
•  The average number of hours spent online per week has more than doubled in the past decade, from 9.4 in 2000 to 19 in 2009.  The largest year-to-year increases in weekly hours online have been reported in the past two years (personally, I blame Facebook!). 
  
•  Although nearly 80% of web users rely on the Internet as an important source of information, the percentage of people who say that most or all of online information is reliable has dropped from 55% in 2000 to 39% in 2009.  (Are we getting smarter, or just more cynical?) 
  
•  The death of printed newspapers has been reported for years, but this study showed that 62% of offline newspaper readers would miss the print edition if it ceased to exist (that’s an increase for the second year in a row).  On the other hand, 18% say that they’ve stopped a subscription for a newspaper or magazine because they get the same content online.  Still, the apparent fondness for print newspapers heartens this longtime subscriber. 
  
•  Text messaging by cell phone users has more than doubled in only two years.  Not surprisingly, the number of messages sent each day is by far the highest among those under 18, with an average of 81 messages.  (Apparently my 15 year old daughter is pulling the average up – she’s at around 3500 per month!) 
  
•  Almost two thirds of Internet users buy online, recession or no recession (no change from 2008).  Interestingly 75% of people have browsed in stores and then bought online.  Sometimes it’s good to touch and feel something, and then search for the best price. 
  
•  Nearly half of those who go online have used free microblogging sites such as Twitter.  Zero percent of these people said they’d pay for Twitter, which hints at the challenge they’re facing to monetize. 
  
•  That said, although 70% of users claim to find web advertising annoying (and yet…they click on pay-per-click ads all the time!), a growing percentage prefer viewing ads over personally paying for content. 

You can read highlights from the report here, or purchase it here.