A New Study of Technology

"Few would argue that mobile devices and online technology have become deeply embedded in society," says the latest report from the Barna Group. "Millions of Americans have become dependent upon the new digital conveniences that provide them with entertainment, information, products and content. The impact of these technologies on interpersonal relationships — a domain often called social networking — has begun to rewire the way people meet, express themselves and stay connected."

Some of the results that Barna found include:

• Four out of five Americans (78%) who access a computer have sent an email in the past week.
• Computer users over the age of 50 are just as likely as younger adults to use email.
• One-third of computer users (33%) have used instant messaging (IM) in the past week.
• Thirty percent of Americans have sent someone a text message via a mobile telephone in the past week.
• One-quarter of computer users (23%) has a personal webpage or home page on a social networking site (such as Facebook or MySpace).
• Ten percent of Americans with regular access to a computer have a personal blog (weblog) where they communicate their ideas and experiences.
• Fourteen percent of computer users have posted a comment on another person's blog in the last week.
• Sixteen million American adults use a blog as a pulpit to broadcast their voices to the world. Blogs are most common among single adults, Northeast residents, homosexuals, those not registered to vote, and atheists and agnostics.
• More than seven out of 10 people who have a blog update their online journal at least once a week.
• Some of the more common uses of the Internet in any given week are searching for information or content (84%), online purchasing (27%), watching online videos (26%), downloading music (13%), downloading movies (2%) and viewing pornography or adult content (4%).

Within the Christian community, Barna found that:

• Thirty-eight percent of evangelicals and 31 percent of born-again Christians listen to a sermon or church teaching via a digital recording available on the Internet (often called a "podcast') in the past week, compared to 17 percent of other adults. In macro-terms, that means that roughly 45 million Americans report going digital to acquire sermons and teaching content.
• In all, one out of every four adults (23%) says they download a church podcast each week.

For additional analyses of differing demographic and psychographic groups, see the full report at www.barna.org.