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This month we’ve seen a lot of interesting talk about different technologies and how they affect teens here at the YALSA blog. Now that we’re wrapping things up, I thought it might be interesting to pull back a little and look at the larger social effect of the Internet on society. There are two reports by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in particular that can tell us how the Internet has changed our social lives.

A 2006 study published in the American Sociological Review contented that over the previous 20 years, Americans had become more socially isolated as the number of people with whom they discussed things declined and the diversity of those groups of people decreased.

While a 2009 Pew Research Center report corroborated some of the findings of the 2006 study, it also cast some of the findings of that study in doubt. Here are some of their findings:

• It was true that “an increasing number of Americans have no one with whom they can discuss important matters, but that “compared to 1985, there has been a small-to-modest change, rather than a large drop in the number of people who report that they have no one with whom they can discuss important matters.” In fact, 12% of subjects said they didn’t have such a person, but only 6% of adults said they had no one “especially significant” in their lives.
• Again, it’s true that the size of core discussion networks has declined–by about 1/3, or about one person. And diversity had declined as well, with discussion networks now mostly centered around family members.
• However! The Pew study determined that these shrinking, homogenizing social networks weren’t due to mobile phone use. Having a mobile phone–as well as using the Internet for sharing digital photos and for IMing–was correlated with having a large discussion network, and Internet users were more likely to discuss things with non-family and were less likely to rely exclusively on spouses or partners for discussion. Additionally, blogging was linked with a 95% higher likelihood of having a discussion partner of a different race.
• Face-to-face communication is still the most common means of having contact with people in our discussion networks. Mobile phones come in second; texting and landline phones tied for third; email, IM, and social networking websites came next (in that order); and sending cards and letters was the least frequent method of communication.
• Owners of a mobile phone, people who used the Internet frequently at work, and bloggers were more likely to belong to some sort of “local voluntary group,” which includes things like neighborhood associations, sports leagues, youth groups, and church or social clubs.
• And lest you think Internet users are just holed up at home, the report also found that Internet users were 42% more likely to visit a public park or plaza than non-users, and were 45% more likely to visit a coffee shop or cafe. Being a blogger made you even more likely to visit a public park.
• Those who use the Internet and use a social networking website had social networks that were about 20% more diverse than non-Internet users.

So in short, the average American does have fewer peop

Research is a term that can be scary to a lot of people. For teens it might bring on fears of having to complete a research paper for which the process might not be well understood and therefore isn’t easy to complete. For adults it might seem that reading research reports is a boring and perhaps even an incomprehensible task. But, even though research can send shivers up one’s spine, reading current research can be really useful in helping understand how to best support teens in a community.

A few days ago the Pew Research Center for People and the Press released a report on news consumption. While on the surface this report might not seem like it has a connection to teen librarians, reading the report one learns that it does. The information in the report can help librarians serving the age group understand where teens get their news. This information can lead to understanding how and what type of new sources the library should provide for teens.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report earlier this week about the culture of apps. As the report notes, apps were not really a part of American life until just about two years ago. Now, for some people, they are a very common part of life. Again, while this report is not geared specifically to providing information about teen use of apps, it provides insight into the types of content teens are likely to be interested in when making app selections. And, as more and more libraries review apps for teens, and make app-related resources available, knowing about the data provided by Pew can help in app collection development and in providing information to teens about apps.

In the realm of apps, Nielsen released data earlier this month that demonstrates that games are the most widely used type of app. Again, this research isn’t focused on teen use of apps. But, with a large number of adults using game apps on phones, it might be extrapolated that teens with smartphones use their devices, at least in part, to play games. As with the information in the Pew report noted above, this game apps research can be used for collection development and information provision.

Keeping up on new research that’s specific to teens, or specific to another population, can often lead to insights about how to provide the best service possible to adolescents. The many research arms of the Pew Research Center and Nielsen are just two places for finding useful research and research data. What are the favorite data/research resources of YALSA Blog readers?

Don’t forget that later this fall, YALSA will launch its new research journal geared specifically to those interested in and working with teens in libraries. You can learn more about it, including how to submit an article, on the YALSA website.