Social Media

Frequent use of social media is not directly related to higher stress. But stress can be contagious through social media channels: Social media users are often more aware of the stressful events in others' lives, and this awareness itself can lead to higher stress.

While Facebook remains the most popular social media site, other platforms — like LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter — saw higher rates of growth over the past year. In 2014, 52% of online adults used two or more social media sites, up from 42% in 2013.

Online American workers say the internet and email are very important tools for doing their jobs, rating them higher in importance than landline phones, mobile phones, and social networking sites. Just 7% say the internet makes them less productive at work.

Three-quarters of online Americans know which is bigger, a megabyte or a kilobyte, but only 9% are able to correctly identify the first widely popular graphical web browser. How much do you know about the web and digital technology?

While social media sites were the most common place noted for online harassment in a recent Pew Research Center survey, about a fifth of internet users cited website comments sections as places where they had that experience.

The majority of Americans feel their privacy is being challenged in some fundamental ways, our new report finds. See the variety of perspectives our focus group respondents shared about privacy. Their answers are real, but they have been assigned a pseudonym.

A majority of Americans feel that their privacy is being challenged along such core dimensions as the security of their personal information and their ability to retain confidentiality.

Social media users who are interested in politics have different experiences on Facebook and Twitter, with four-in-ten Twitter users saying that at least half of the posts that they see are political, compared with about a quarter of Facebook users who say the same.

One-in-five Americans report sharing their religious faith on social networks like Facebook and Twitter in an average week, about the same percentage that tune in to religious talk radio, watch religious TV programs or listen to Christian rock music.

28% of registered voters use their cell phone to follow political news, and 16% follow political figures on social media.