Herkimer County Internet Access

Below is a chart showing the percent of households in Herkimer County that have internet access, based on an extrapolation of recently released 2014 ACS data. Of the 70% that have internet access, most of those are households that subscribe to an internet service (68% of ALL households subscribe to dial-up, DSL, cable, fiber optic, satellite, or some combination of these services when accessing the internet). Roughly 30% of Herkimer County households lack internet access as of 2014.

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By Income, the Percent of Regional Households With Broadband

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Staying Connected: Computers and Regional Access To the Internet

One of the new areas included in recent American Community Surveys are questions on accessing the internet, as well as the availability of home computers and mobile devices. Below are several graphics from the Utica-Rome Region (Herkimer and Oneida Counties combined) which begin to explore some of this new found data !

Overall Internet Usage

 

 

Subscription Service Access

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Internet Access by Income

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Computers Presence and Internet Access

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How We Read in America: Books, eBooks and AudioBooks Demographics

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The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently released a report about Americans and their reading habits when it comes to books, ebooks and audiobooks. Especially interesting is their breakdown of the demographics of who uses each of those three reading resources.

Overall, 76% of adults read a book in some format over the previous 12 months. The typical American adult (i.e. the median) read or listened to 5 books in the past year, and the average for all adults (i.e. the mean) was 12 books. Neither the mean nor median number of books read has changed significantly over the past few years.

As of January of 2014, 50% of Americans now have a dedicated handheld device–either a tablet computer like an iPad, or an e-reader such as a Kindle or Nook for reading e-content. That figure has grown from 43% of adults who had either of those devices in September of 2013.

The proportion of Americans who read e-books is growing, but few have completely replaced print books for electronic versions. The percentage of adults who read an e-book in the past year has risen to 28%, up from 23% at the end of 2012. At the same time, about seven in ten Americans reported reading a book in print, up four percentage points after a slight dip in 2012, and 14% of adults listened to an audiobook. Though e-books are rising in popularity, print remains the foundation of Americans’ reading habits. Most people who read e-books also read print books, and just 4% of readers are “e-book only.”

Extremely interesting is the demographic breakouts for each of these various reading trends.

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Among the cited observations and trends were that women are more likely than men to have read a book in the previous 12 months, and those with higher levels of income and education are more likely to have done so as well. In addition, blacks are more likely to have read a book than Hispanics. There were no significant differences by age group for rates of reading overall.

In terms of book format, women are more likely than men to have read a print book or an e-book, as are whites and blacks compared with Hispanics and those with higher education and incomes compared with others. Younger adults are also more likely than those ages 65 and older to have read e-books, as are those who live in urban and suburban areas compared with rural residents. Finally, adults with higher levels of education are more likely to have read audiobooks than those who did not attend college.

There is much more information included in the report so please visit the PEW website and explore the rest of their findings!

Social Networking and Internet Use Differences Among White, Black, and Hispanic Users

Back in August of 2013 I posted about a PEW study measuring adult use of the internet. Well recently the Wall Street Journal released a study of how Twitter is attempting to better aim it's ads based on the demographics of its users. As it turns out Twitter's user base is more racially diverse than U.S. Internet users as a whole. Blacks, Hispanics and Asian users account for 41% of Twitter's 54 million U.S. users, compared with 34% of the users of rival Facebook and 33% of all U.S. Internet users, according to Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project.

The graphic below allows some comparisons between the various prominent social media and their user demographics.

2013 Herkimer County TAP: Technology and the Internet

With tremendous growth of cell phones and technology devices such as tablets, personal communications  and interactions have changed dramatically in recent decades. The Teen Assessment Project (TAP) survey has focused for several years on establish some baseline data concerning the use of email, social networking, cell phones, and what has become known as "sexting" - the sharing of nude or semi-nude personal pictures across electronic communications, particularly among cell phone users.

Most teens have a web presence, including personal email and profile page. As many as 85% of all teens reported that they have a personal email address that is exclusively theirs. This is significantly more than in 2009 when about 79% said they had personal email. In addition, nearly 80% said they specifically have a personal profile page on Facebook, with one in twenty teens (5%) having multiple Facebook profiles. Twitter accounts are fairly well established among teens as well. Slightly under half (46%) indicated that they had Twitter accounts.

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Cell phones have become a prolific form of communication in our society. nearly 90% of all teens said that they have a cell phone.  Virtually all teens (93%) who have access to a cell phone use text messaging. Nearly 40% of all teens who have a cell phone send more than 100 texts a day, and more than a quarter (27%) send at least 150 texts every day.

In terms of sharing personal information, significantly fewer teens (13%) said that they had given personal information to a stranger online in the 2013 TAP Survey than four years earlier (17%). Similarly fewer indicated that they had actually been asked to meet with a stranger as well (10% in 2013 versus 13% in 2009). Still, both in 2009 and 2013, as many as 10% said that they had actually met a stranger, which was defined as someone who they did not personally know and with whom they had no common friends. 

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Nearly 45% of all teens have been involved in some form of “sexting,” meaning they had sent, received or shared nude or seminude pictures of themselves or others. While this is significantly less than in 2009 (52%), it still represents nearly half of all teens.

About one out of every five teens (22%) said they had shared a nude or seminude picture of themselves via an email, cell phone or through instant messaging. One in three teens (34%) said they had received a nude or seminude picture that someone else sent of themselves through email, their cell phone or instant messaging.  Slightly more than 20% of all teens said someone else, who had received a nude or seminude picture, had shared it with them. 

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About 6% of all 7th graders reported they had electronically sent a nude or semi-nude picture of themselves.  This is significantly less than in the 2009 when one in ten 7th graders (10%) indicated doing this. Also, fewer 9th graders indicated they sent pictures of themselves in 2013 than in 2009 data (2013 - 20%; 2009 - 30%). The percentage of 11th graders sharing such pictures of themselves remained essentially the same (approximately 40%).

 

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Among 7th graders, 14% said that others had sent them nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves; this is down from 22% in 2009. Also, a smaller proportion of 9th grade respondents reported ever receiving such pictures (2013 - 33%; 2009 - 45%).  Among 11th graders, the percent reportedly receiving nude or semi-nude pictures remained unchanged at about 55%.

To see the complete 2013 TAP report (or any of the previous reports as well), visit the Planning Department's Human Service page.

2013 Herkimer County Teen Assessment Project Report to be Released Soon !

The 2013 version of the Herkimer County Teen Assessment Project (TAP)  should be released within a short time. The TAP report, which represents the fifth time data has been collected from Herkimer County teens over 16 years, will contain a variety of information from local youth about their experiences in school, in their homes, and within their the communities. Topics covered include alcohol and drug use, bullying, sexuality issues, depression and suicide, and internet use, as well as many others.

Until the report is released your best bet for Herkimer County TAP data is the 2009 survey results. The 2013 Herkimer County TAP data has been analyzed and a report of its findings, along with all of the TAP survey reports, will be found on the Human Service Planning page of HOCCPP as well as on here.

In the meantime, here's a look back at some of the 2009 results in Herkimer County. Click any of them to enlarge that graphic.

2009 TAP Smoking Data

2009 TAP Drinking Data

2009 TAP Marijuana Data

2009 TAP Sexuality Data

2009 TAP Harassment Data

2009 TAP Suicide Ideation Data

2009 TAP Web Presence Data

2009 TAP Web Behavior Data

2009 TAP Sexting Data

The Promises Versus Realities of Broadband Coverage and Performance

A recent article about broadband internet access by Bob Scardamalia, the former chief demographer for the state of New York, sheds light on the promises versus the realities broadband access and performance especially in rural areas of this country. In the article Bob talks about his personal experience in trying to get (and maintain) high speed internet connectivity while running a small business in a rural part of Albany County. The article points out many of the contradictory realities of broadband access as compared to the promises made from many broadband providers. 

Of particular interest are the National Broadband Maps . These show, among other things, the coverage by types of technology available in an area. You can, for example, narrow the map down to the State of New York and see the following level of total coverage:
 

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You could also look at the speed test versus the advertised speeds for your area.  

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But some of these maps need to be viewed with caution. this is particularly true with the coverage maps. As article by Bob Scardamalia points out, there are problems with coverage maps. Each state is responsible for reporting its own data, so there is not national standard necessarily being applied. Definitions and reporting techniques are inconsistent between states, as well as possibly within states. And the data is based on "advertised" speeds reported by Internet service providers. So while these maps provide at least some insight into the world of broadband, they shouldn't be accepted blindly.

PEW Examines Who Uses Social Networking and Twitter

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project has been studying online adults’ social networking site use since 2005, and they have seen substantial growth since that first survey. According to their most recent survey, 72% of online adults use social networking sites. Although younger adults continue to be the most likely social media users, one of the more striking stories about the social networking population has been the growth among older internet users in recent years. Those ages 65 and older have roughly tripled their presence on social networking sites in the last four years—from 13% in the spring of 2009 to 43% now.

This report, which was based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, also studied online adults’ use of Twitter. The percentage of internet users who are on Twitter has more than doubled since November 2010, currently standing at 18%. Internet users ages 18-29 are the most likely to use Twitter—30% of them now do so.

To see the complete report, visit this link at PEW.

Internet Use and Connectivity in the US

In 2011, more Americans connected to the Internet than ever before, although differences continued to exist between those with use and those without. Just as with differences in use, variation in the ways that people were connecting online and the frequency of their use remained prevalent as well. A recent report of the Census Bureau, Computer and Internet Use in the United States, provides household and individual level analysis of computer and Internet use. The findings are based on data collected in a July 2011 supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS), which includes questions about computer ownership, Internet use both inside and outside the home, and the additional devices that people use to go online. The U.S. Census Bureau has asked questions in the CPS about computer use since 1984 and Internet use since 1997.This narrative report is complemented by a detailed table package that allows users to explore the data in more detail.

 

One of the more interesting pieces of the report deals with how connected people are with their devices. Access to computing technology and the Internet is not a simple “yes/no” proposition. As technology has changed and evolved over the years, people have seen an increase in the variation and number of ways they use computers and access the Internet. To explore this phenomenon further, a scale was developed for use in the report, designed to place individuals along a “connectivity continuum” of access variations, ranging from people with no Internet connection or computer, to those connecting from multiple locations and devices. The result is the following graphic – please be sure to note the percents in parens after each level of the continuum. These are the national sample percentages of people at this level of connectivity.

 

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In 2011, a plurality of Americans connected to the Internet from multiple locations and multiple devices (27.0 percent). These individuals were considered “high connectivity” individuals. The second most common position on the continuum was the opposite extreme—individuals without any computer or Internet activity at all (15.9 percent), or “no connectivity” individuals. The remaining 57 percent of Americans were located somewhere between these two extremes.

What surprised me in this report was the map below. It shows the percent of the population having high connectivity access. Basically states are broken into three classifications – those who have a significantly higher percentage of their population with high connectivity access than the national average (which was 27%) by the way); those who didn’t vary significantly from the national average; and those states that had a significantly lower percentage of their population having high connectivity access.

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As the report notes, “The majority of southern states lagged behind the nation in terms of highly connected individuals. The same can be said for segments of other regions, as pockets of the West, Midwest, and Northeast all contained multiple states with low percentages of high connectivity...” Unfortunately one of those states is New York ! Apparently we are working at a significant disadvantage when it comes to high  levels of connectivity to the internet.

Internet Access and Usage Statistics By State

Finding data on accessing and use of the internet is very difficult. However tables recently released from the US Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) School Enrollment and Internet Use Supplement do provide some insights.

The tables display national and state level data and examine householder and individual characteristics by school enrollment, age, race, sex and Hispanic origin. Additional tables use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine how and why people connect to the Internet. The CPS has been collecting data on computers and Internet use periodically since 1984. SIPP data on this subject have been collected since 1998.

These data tables appear on the  US Census Computer and Internet Use page.