How people use the Web

People's favorite things to do on the Web are: using search engines, checking email, watching and sharing video clips, and social networking, in that order. That's what Forbes.com seems to be saying in "What Are People Actually Doing on the Web?" On No. 3: "There are plenty of sites devoted to the art of, well, lollygagging. Take YouTube, Americans' sixth-most-hammered site, with 75 million unique visitors last month, each of whom spent an average of one hour per visit." As for that fourth pursuit, "to be sure, social networking is still a youthful pursuit - Generation Y (ages 18 to 28) is nearly four times as likely to frequent such sites as are the 29-and-over population - but the speed at which this phenomenon has taken hold is breathtaking. Consider that back in July 2005, "Thefacebook" ranked No. 236 on Nielsen's list, with nearly 4 million unique visitors. By last month, the social networking site - now called simply Facebook - had scaled its way to No. 16, with over 34 million uniques [visitors]."

Teens' definition of writing...

...does not include all the texting, IMing, blogging, and commenting they're constantly doing online, and yet they're writing all the time as they compose phone text messages, IMs, blog posts, and comments in social-networking sites. This disconnect between what they're doing and their perception of it is a very interesting finding from a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Why does the disconnect matter? Because there's a debate going on among adults - parents, educators, etc. - about whether all this writing is hurting their formal writing and, just as importantly, Pew says in its description of the report, "because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them." The study "looks at teens’ basic definition of writing, explores the various kinds of writing they do, seeks their assessment about what impact e-communication has on their writing, and probes for their guidance about how writing instruction might be improved." Meanwhile, any writer will tell you that the two most important activities for aspiring professional writers are writing a lot and reading a lot. Here's coverage from The Times of London and CNET.

We're all becoming Net-trained info-gatherers

Apparently we're all becoming the rapid-fire, uncritical information hunter-gatherers we had thought only our children were. Yes, they're the digital natives but, according to a new study out of the UK, the Internet is "training" all of us to approach information this way, which may mean we all have to work extra hard now to think more critically and analytically. A just-released longitudinal study from University College London found that, "although young people demonstrate an apparent ease and familiarity with computers, they rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information that they find on the Web," its press release. Titled "Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future," the study also found that the research behaviors "commonly associated with younger users – impatience in search and navigation and zero tolerance for any delay in satisfying their information needs – are now becoming the norm for all age groups." A longitudinal study tracks its subject over a period of time, and this was a "virtual longitudinal study" - see p. 6 of its pdf version for an explanation. This one was commissioned by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee to get a handle on "the changing needs of researchers and other users." Thanks to tech educator Anne Bubnic in for pointing this study out.