Text Doubles, Twitter Free Only, Newspapers Decline, Says USC Digital Future

The latest survey from USC's Annenberg Digital Future Study shows the decline of the newspapers even further and the unwillingness to pay for currently free services such as Twitter.

49% of those surveyed said that they use micro-blogging (Twitter) however, when asked if they would pay for Twitter none answered yes.

Users don't want to pay for content and don't click on it either. They found that half of Internet users never click on web advertising, and 70 percent said that Internet advertising is "annoying," while 55 percent of users said they would rather see web advertising than pay for content.

"Online providers face major challenges to get customers to pay for services they now receive for free" said Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at USC's Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

Mobile Phone and Text Findings of the 2010 Digital Future Study:

• For the first time, the Internet is used by more than 80 percent of Americans, reaching 82 percent.
  Americans now spend an average of 19 hours per week online.
• Text
  messaging has more than doubled in just two years: Overall, mobile
  users who send text messages average 38 messages per day, compared to 16
  in 2007. However, texting is almost exclusively a medium for younger
  subscribers--the number of messages sent per day is highest among users
  under 18, reaching 81 per day in the current study compared to 33 per
  day in 2007.
• More than 70 percent of mobile users credit their phone with helping
  them to maintain their social relationships, up from 64 percent in 2008.

As far as opinions about technology go, it makes life better even if it is not reliable.

• The percentage of users age 16 and older who said that communication
  technology makes the world a better place declined to 56 percent, down
  from its peak of 66 percent in 2002.
• Sixty-one percent of users said that only half or less of online information is reliable --a new low.
• Fourteen
  percent of Internet users said that only a small portion or none of the
  information online is reliable, with only 46 percent of users
  expressing some trust or a lot of trust in the web in general. Nine
  percent of users have no trust in the Internet.
• Eighteen percent
  of Internet users said they stopped a subscription to a newspaper or
  magazine because they now get the same or related content online - down
  slightly from 22 percent in 2008, but nevertheless a strong indication
  that print newspapers can be sacrificed by a significant percentage of
  Internet users.
• Only twenty-two percent of users who read newspapers said they would not miss the print edition of their newspaper.

For highlights of the 2010 Digital Future Project or to order a copy of the complete report, visit www.digitalcenter.org.