John B. Horrigan

Twice as many Americans used the internet as their primary source of news about the 2006 campaign compared with the most recent mid-term election in 2002.

Fully 87% of online users have at one time used the internet to carry out research on a scientific topic or concept.

On a typical day in August, 26 million Americans were using the internet for news or information about politics and the upcoming mid-term elections.

Datasets from our December 2005 and portions of our February-March 2006 survey are available online.

Adoption of high-speed internet at home grew twice as fast in the year prior to March 2006 than in the same time frame from 2004 to 2005. Middle-income Americans accounted for much of the increase.

The representativeness of technology surveys might benefit by supplementing random digital dial survey samples with samples of cell phone users.

60 million Americans say that the internet helped them make big decisions or negotiate their way through major episodes in their lives.

John Horrigan, Pew Internet's Associate Director for Research, on C-SPAN's "The Communicators"

By the end of 2005, 50 million Americans got news online on a typical day, a sizable increase since 2002. Much of that growth has been fueled by the rise in home broadband connections over the last four years.

In December 2005 24% of adult rural Americans went online at home with high-speed internet connections compared with 39% of adults in urban and suburban areas.