Pew Research has issued three reports this past  month on Americans’ use of new communications tools and platforms. Here’s an excellent chance to catch up with the kind of media choices your donors are making.

Smartphone Adoption and Usage

• 35% of all US adults have a smartphone.
• The biggest users — those with income of $75K or more, college degree, under age 45, African-American or Latino.
• Some 87% of smartphone owners access the internet or email on their handheld; 25% of smartphone owners say that they mostly go online using their phone, rather than with a computer.

As we’ve asked before, what does your website look like on a smartphone screen?

E-reader & Tablet Ownership

• E-reader ownership has doubled in last six months, to 12% of US adults.
• Tablet ownership, now at 8%, appears to be leveling off; 17% of those with $75K+ income own one, and 13% of college grads.
• Confirming the overall trend toward adoption of mobile devices, laptop computers are for the first time as popular as desktop computers among U.S. adults.

Social Networking Sites and Our Lives

• 47% of US adults use at least one social network site (SNS), close to double the number in 2008.
• Half these users are now over the age of 35.
• 92% are using Facebook, 18% LinkedIn, 13% Twitter.

But the big news was political (the underlying survey was taken over the November 2010 elections). Says Pew:

“At that time, 10% of Americans reported that they had attended a political rally, 23% reported that they had tried to convince someone to vote for a specific candidate, and 66% reported that they had or intended to vote. Internet users in general were over twice as likely to attend a political meeting, 78% more likely to try and influence someone’s vote, and 53% more likely to have voted or intended to vote.  Compared with other internet users, and users of other SNS platforms, a Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day was an additional two and half times more likely to attend a political rally or meeting, 57% more likely to persuade someone on their vote, and an additional 43% more likely to have said they would vote.”

I’ll wager that a question about involvement in issue advocacy would have yielded similar results.

Tom