New Study on Americans' Expectations of the Net

radicalsubversiv writes "A new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project reports on Americans' expectations about finding information on the Internet. The (unsurprising) results reveal that large portions of the public go to the net first for many kinds of information. '16 percent of the nonusers say they would turn to the Internet first the next time they need health care and government information.' AP story summarizing the results; and the actual report in PDF format."

Comments

What's the story?

[anarchima]

I don't really see the importance of this story. This is pretty much a reality in the "new age", but of course it's nice to have a study to back it up. Interesting development to see that non-users are turning to the Internet for help, though. I often find that when students at my school are doing research for a project, essay, etc., teachers tell them to look in books first because they know how difficult it can be to find relevant information. This just shows how important it is to have good, thorough searching tools like Google.

I use the net for....

[Chicane-UK]

All kinds of stuff that perhaps 4 or 5 years ago, wouldn't have been available :

Phone numbers, cinema listings, used car adverts, buying just about anything you can imagine, weather forecast, reading the daily news (well, its more than daily - most sites are updating all the time), and keeping in regular contact with friends and family.

Yes, there are a lot of bad things about the internet, but there have been so many advances in recent years.. it has most definately become a tool that I could not do without!

This can be good... or not

[The Tyro]

Going to the net for general news and commentary is a great use for the internet... far better than sitting on your couch, stuffing your face, passively taking in what Tom or Peter tells you is news.

On the other hand, I sometimes take care of ppl (I work in the healthcare field) who come to see me "armed" with info off the internet; some of it wildly inaccurate.

The internet can be a good place to look for healthcare info, provided you stick to the major sites. Hitting Joe Schmoe's Geocities page about how all the evil doctors tried to kill him treating his cancer... then he found this miracle herb/crystal treatment... Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

I hate to be paternalistic and say "trust your doctor," but who else is going to help you sort the wheat from the chaff? For instance, take the PDR. Few physicians I know regularly use it; it's simply a list of drug-company inserts, where they list every possible side effect of every possible medicine. Blah... most people will not have side effects, and if they do, it'll be a common one. I've had people go online and bring in a PDR printout to support their contention that "this new drug is causing all my problems! See? All my symptoms are listed right here! Talk about an uphill battle to keep them on a good medication...

Mixed blessing to be sure, but access to information is important. I'd honestly say, that even in my field, the good of the net outweighs the bad.

Re:This can be good... or not

[WPIDalamar]

I'm sure part of the problem is commercials for prescription drugs! What the hell. I see commercial for some drug (claritan, propecia, whatever) ... go to their website that diagnoses me as having X disorder, and then suggests I go see my doctor to get this medication (because no others work as well).

Usually, even if the doctor disagrees they have no choice but to prescribe since the patient will just change primary care physicians to one who will play ball. It just sucks.

Re:This can be good... or not

[RealBeanDip]

"I hate to be paternalistic and say "trust your doctor," but who else is going to help you sort the wheat from the chaff? For instance, take the PDR. Few physicians I know regularly use it; it's simply a list of drug-company inserts, where they list every possible side effect of every possible medicine. Blah... most people will not have side effects, and if they do, it'll be a common one. I've had people go online and bring in a PDR printout to support their contention that "this new drug is causing all my problems! See? All my symptoms are listed right here! Talk about an uphill battle to keep them on a good medication..."

Yeah, but...

There IS a reason those side-effects are listed. The fact is, these people may in fact be correct!

I think it's encouraging that more people are become better educated about health care and medicine in general. My personal belief is a lot of drugs are over prescribed (antibiotics and ridilin (sp?) in particular). I've come to that conclusion through personal observation and, ta da, research on the internet.

So my response to your statement above is this; Good for them. Stay on your toes, answer the questions with solid facts and you'll have nothing to worry about.

Re:This can be good... or not

[Oculus Habent]

I think in addition to the side effects, perhaps there should be percentages of those affected. This could be a bad thing, but it would also give doctors a tool against patients who say things like "See, it says rare cases of bleeding eye sockets, and after inspecting my eyes for nine hours yesterday, they started bleeding!"

Re:This can be good... or not

[The Tyro]

Boy, do I wish it were that easy. It often doesn't matter how solid my facts are; it's a question of who you believe. If you look at any list of side effects, you'll find many with 2%, 3% incidence. To have 3 or 4 rare side effects at one time, assuming they are unrelated to one another? If you work out the probability, it's pretty low.

I'm not anyone's jailer... I can't force anyone to take anything. I do my best to give accurate information, and try to persuade people to do the right thing for themselves... but the final call is always theirs. In a way that somewhat absolves me of responsibility for the outcome, but it still pains me to see people hurt themselves.

You are correct that some drugs are over-prescribed. Antibiotics are overprescribed, and Ritalin is sometimes as well (though to be fair, if you have real ADHD, it's a wonder drug... the difference is like night and day). The problem comes in the form of doctor shopping. Do you risk your long-time relationship with a patient by outright refusal to try them on a drug? They might go shopping for another doctor who will prescribe it anyway... and then you've lost that incredibly valuable long-term relationship you've built with the patient. So the argument goes: If they are going to get the drug anyway, why don't YOU prescribe it, so you can monitor for complications, and potentially provide better care than a total stranger?

Tough choices... and sometimes driven by direct-to-patient drug company advertising.

Don't even get me started on the advertising issue...

I use library and telephone analogies

[MyNameIsFred]

I had the same problem with my in-laws. At first they didn't understand the internet and were leary. I used a couple of analogies... URLs are just phone numbers, except easier to remember. They could understand this. They're old enough to remember when telephone numbers were "Klondike 567." Then I showed them how it was just like a library in your home. It was tax time, and my father-in-law needed a tax form. A few clicks and ta-da. I even located an out of print book my mother-in-law wanted.

Although as someone who pushes paper all day, I have to agree with your Mum. Sometimes I wish I drove a bulldozer. At least at the end of the day I could point to something I had accomplished.

OTOH, you could ask your Mum if a being a lawyer is a real job, all they do is push information. Or how about an accountant...

Re:My mum still doesn't get it.

[mikewas]

In case of nuclear war information becomes more important, though the type of information needed changes. How to prevent contamination & decontaminate food, water, air and people. Later you'd neeed to know what plants to grow, when to plant, how to fertalize naturally, hunting & gathering skills, food preservation. Information will become truly invaluable because it'll be the diffference between life & death.

Restoring communications & computer networks would go a long way towards helping the survivors. We'd need to share this information, since it is spread thinly across most of modern society. Envision a slashdot cobbled together from bits & pieces of remaining infrastructure, with folks trading information about tilling the soil, reloading ammo, making black powder, traps & snares, skinning game, tanning hides?

The other 84 percent??

[DamienMcKenna]

"16 percent of the nonusers say they would turn to the Internet first the next time..".

So 16% would use the net for healthcare and government information. That still means 84% would NOT. So why is this being promoted as a victory for the Internet over alternative communications methods?

It can be helpful though....

[Lokatana]

I had an issue with my daughter when she was 3 months old, and as part of the doctor's investigation, they found she had an inverted chromosome which ended up having nothing to do with her problem.

The amazing thing is, the geneticist couldn't tell me anything about this particular inversion, as neither she or any of her colleagues had ever seen it before.

I used the internet to search various databases and papers, and came up with a single paper that had been written in Europe a few years back that studied a family that had the very same inversion. I was the one who brought this paper to the geneticist's attention (rather than the other way around), after which we were able to confidently set aside the genetic findings as a red herring. This was a case of the patient knowing more than the doctor!!!

While I agree with the spirit of this posting, I believe my story shows that there are no absolutes here. When used intellectually, given the right inputs, it is a very valuable tool!

-Lokatana

Internet dying

[RalphSlate]

I have no precise facts to back this up, but I believe that the internet is slowly contracting -- dying -- because the amount of available information is shrinking. I don't think this is a case of me having the "when I was young, the snow was up to my waist" syndrome either.

I find that when I search for information on topics, I get mostly links to sites to buy products. Or links to sites that don't work anymore. I might get one or two good links, but not often.

For example, I wanted information on police scanners last week. That sounds like a common topic for people to publish information on the internet, right?

A google search brought me, in the top 10 results:

• 2 links to APBNews.com, a site which has been defunct for a while (I think since 2001). Those were the top 2 "relevant" links.
• A couple of local newspaper sites that link to their area police broadcasts.
• A couple of places where I could buy scanners. Note, most of these places were selling for full MSRP, so even the merchant links don't really help, since if I buy from them I'll pay more than a store.
• One or two amateurish sites devoted to scanning, but with stale information. Some of hese sites offered information if you purchased it from them for $10-20. I'd be better off buying a book.

Now from some of these sites, I was able to piece together some information on the topic, mostly by uusing some information from the merchant sites, and some from the amateur sites, but I was expecting to find a couple of "semi-pro" resources devoted to the topic, a place where I could have most of my questions answered.

This isn't the first time I've experienced this. I search for information on how to remodel my house, but I find that there really is little out there anymore -- just a bunch of small merchant sites, often spammed so that the top 10 search results all redirect to the same merchant.

I believe this is happening because there is little incentive to create fresh, updated content on the internet anymore. Sure, you'll get people creating a website and maybe spending a weekend updating it, but it's really not like the old days, when you could get information on any subject, no matter how obscure, updated daily or even weekly.

I have a feeling that the internet's days as a font of information may be running out, because there is no way to run a quality, high-traffic website for free forever. It may be better than any other source of information, but I believe that soon, people will be heading back to libraries and bookstores for their information, because it just won't be there on the internet. What a shame!

Which Providers? Certainly not "the Internet".

[markk]

I find this study pretty misleading, and based on a "broadcast" model of the online media. This is equating the "internet" with broadcasting. Would anyone say - 60% of people turn to the telephone for health information?

Online services are not like TV where there is (even with cable) a very limited number of choices for a topic. It would be interesting to see where people actually go for information - I suspect in the US that it is a very limited number of places for the vast majority of info. This isn't bad on its face, probably inevitable, but inquiry into exactly where people go and who controls those places should really be an ongoing study more interesting than this one.