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If someone asked you to quantify (衡量) the time you spend online, how would you answer? If you're like one-fifth of Americans, you'd likely say “almost constantly.” New research shows that 21 percent of Americans report that they're online more or less constantly.
Andrew Perrin, a research assistant at Pew, did a survey about Internet use. During the survey, adults were asked how much they go online. 13 percent said they don't go online and 13 percent said they go online several times a week or less. Only 10 percent said they go online once a day and much larger quantities said they go online several times a day (42 percent) or “almost constantly” (21 percent).
Interestingly, there wasn't a gender split (性别分化) when it came to near constant Internet use. Age seems to be the great divider: Only six percent of people over 65 said they were online that much. Those who reported that they were online all the time included 12 percent of 50- to 64-year-olds, 28 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds and 36 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds.
Don't suppose that teenagers are online more than adults, however. In another survey, Pew found that while they did have a slight edge on adults in general when it came to “almost constant” Internet use, 24 percent said they were online pretty much all the time. They still fell greatly behind the 36 percent of adults between 18 and 29 years of age who were always online.
Given that the United Nations considers unrestricted (无限制的) Internet access (接入) to be a human right, the number of Americans who report being online “almost constantly” could rise along with availability and affordability. But it remains to be seen whether being online all the time is actually something to long for, or how constant connectivity will affect American culture in the long term.
