The American and Australian scientists at STAR have received a $100,000 grant from the Gates Foundation to develop the cough-analyzing software for developing countries where access to health care is more limited than in first world nations. Despite the poor economic conditions of these under-developed countries, there are a plethora of mobile phones which are being used for everything from early warning systems to mobile payments to health alerts. An mobile app that diagnoses disease would fit right in.

The way the diagnostic software works is by comparing the sounds of the mobile user's cough to a database of coughs associated with all the different types of respiratory diseases. There would also be multiple coughs per disease stored in the database to take into account variations by age, gender, weight, and other factors.

While to our untrained ears, many coughs sound just alike, a tuned-in doctor - or in this case, a mobile app - can listen to the entire structure of a cough from the initial intake of air to the final 100-150 milliseconds of a cough that contains the distinctive "wet" or "dry" and "productive" or "unproductive" sounds that help to classify the cough's seriousness, explains an article on Discovery News. Even the loudness of a cough is taken into account - healthy people have coughs that are 2% louder than a sick person's.

At the moment, the software exists as a computer application but the scientists plan to have it re-written, when complete, as an application for mobile phones.

There's no word on when the mobile application will be released, but the scientists will need to collect around 1000 cough samples before the database is ready. If they're able to then design a successful analytical tool for mobile phones, the impacts to people's health would be far-reaching - and not just in developing countries, but everywhere in the world.

Internet Use and Social Media

That's not to say that there aren't some technology addicts that aren't social isolated - around 6% of the adult online population would fit in this category, having no one with whom they can talk about those important matters and who say they don't have anyone "especially significant" in their life. However, this figure (the 6%) has not grown as access to technology has grown over the years - it has remained virtually unchanged since 1985. This points to the fact that perhaps those who are socially isolated individuals would be so anyway, regardless of what sorts of tools are provided to them, be those mobile phones, PCs with internet access, etc.

For the majority of the online population, technology - and especially social media - has led to more diverse networks than we've ever had before. The report notes that those who participate in social networking services such as Facebook for example, are more likely to interact with people from different backgrounds, different races, different political parties, etc. Specifically, blogging and general internet use was tied to having more racially diverse networks while online photo sharing was tied to having more diverse political discussion partners.

Those who use the internet tend to have 15% more network ties who aren't family members and those who use instant messaging services have 19% more non-kin members in their core networks.

Mobile Phone Use

Along these same lines, the ubiquity of mobile phones hasn't led to decreased face time with family and friends, but just the opposite. On average, a person spends 195 days of the year having mobile phone contact with others, but face-to-face interactions occur on about 210 days per year. In addition, mobile users have around 15% more family members with whom they can discuss important matters and tend to have 25% more core network members who are not family members. Overall, those who use mobile phones have core networks that are 12% larger than those who don't.

Despite all this good news about how technology leads to having larger, more diverse networks, the researchers also found that our networks' size has actually shrunk over the years. Since 1985, there has been a decrease of about 1/3 in their size. The researchers don't suggest any specific reasons for this shrinkage, but they do point out that they can now rule out one possibility for sure: technology.

Really?

If you're an iPhone owner yourself, you're probably going to be taken a bit aback by these findings. For example, the study claims that "cool gadgets" make a person three times more attractive to an iPhone owner than a college degree. Meanwhile "old" gadgets are a turnoff to one in three iPhone users. And yet, if that person spends a little too much time with said gadgets, one in four iPhone owners will break up with them. One in three will do it via email or text message.

Taken on their own, it's hard to say whether these stats are indicative of anything about iPhone owners specifically, or if they could apply to any group of smartphone-owning mobile users. That's why the report compares the iPhone and Blackberry owners on each topic. When studied this way, iPhone owners beat Blackberry owners in every category where "winning" is actually the equivalent of being a materialistic, flaky, fickle dolt...well, at least in our opinion.

To spin the findings even further in Blackberry's favor, one of the questions involved asking the mobile users how they "see" themselves. 40% of the iPhone owners claimed they were an "intellectual" while only 36% of Blackberry users said the same. Propped up against the other results, it's an almost laughable claim.

Don't Buy this Hype

Clearly, this survey wasn't meant to be an in-depth examination of the smartphone toting population - in fact, it's more likely just a publicity stunt to generate talk about Retrevo. Given the questions asked, there were bound to be some "rather interesting" findings, no matter how the respondents answered. And by keeping the sample size to a low number - only 445 individuals - there's no guarantee that these folks are representative of the population at large in any way. After all, who signs up for online surveys anyway? While the panel of participants was distributed across gender, age, income and location in the U.S., what's undisclosed is how the questions were asked - was this done scientifically or were they leading questions designed to generate these sorts of results?  We'd bet on the latter.

Still, you have to wonder if there isn't a tiny bit of truth hiding in these numbers somewhere. Could it be that those who buy Apple's smartphone are a little more wrapped up in mobile life than those whose smartphone purchase probably had more to do with accessing company email in a timely fashion? That may be possible, but that wouldn't exactly be an incredible reveal if so, now would it?

Unless you subscribe to the unlimited plan, the only issue with Deep Dyve's new plan is that you can rent articles but not print them. This is a minor issue, however, because most users are just looking at these articles for a few facts or a bibliography and don't need them for extended periods of time. At $19.99 per month, the unlimited plan is cheaper than buying one article from a journal per month, so the price of the service won't be an issue for most of the service's target audience anyway.

Target Audience: Knowledge Workers

Depp Dyve says that its target audience is the 50 million knowledge workers in the US. This is a somewhat optimistic view. After all, how many of these knowledge workers need access to the latest articles from the Journal of Leukocyte Biology? Still, there clearly is an untapped market here, and no one but Deep Dyve is trying to exploit it.

Disruptive or Just an Extension of the Publishers' Business Model?

Deep Dyve offers users a plethora of features, including persistent searches, email, RSS alerts and the ability to bookmark articles. What is most interesting about the company, however, is this new and potentially disruptive business model. The company has indexed over 30 million articles from thousands of journals. Most of these weren't easily available to the public until now. Few users would buy an article for $30 when confronted with a journal paywall. $0.99, though, is a far more palatable price.

According to the company's CEO Bill Park, the publishers that are working with Deep Dyve believe that this new model will help them expand their market without cannibalizing their current business model, which is mostly based on selling institutional subscriptions anyway.

It will be interesting to see how users react to this new service. We think this has the potential to be a very disruptive service, especially if Deep Dyve continues to expand its database and partnerships at the current pace.

In December 2008 and April 2009, the organization's studies showed that around 11 percent of Internet users were using a microblogging or status updating service. That number has now risen to 19 percent, one out of every five Internet users. The three major growth areas driving this increase are social network users, mobile web users and users younger than 44 years old.

Most importantly, each factor was considered independently. In other words, results for any particular group of users are not simply because that group is younger or generally more familiar with technology than other groups.

Thirty-five percent of those who use social networks such as MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn reported that they also use Twitter or a similar service, compared to 6 percent of users whose only social network is Twitter. Overall, around 49 percent of Internet users are also using social network sites.

The study also shows that more than half of all Internet users use a mobile, wireless connection, such as a laptop or cell phone. In December 2008, around 14 percent of these users were using a status updating service or microblog; now, that number has risen to one out of four mobile users. For non-mobile, non-wireless Internet users, 8 percent currently use Twitter, as compared to 6 percent last year. Mobile users also said they used their mobile devices primarily to stay in touch with others and access information online.

Interestingly, gadget geeks represent a large and growing group of Twitter users. Almost 40 percent of Internet users with four or more Internet-connected devices use Twitter. The fewer the gadgets, the less a user is likely to connect via a microblog or status updating service.

The final growth area identified in the Pew study was younger users. Those under the age of 44 reported a rapidly increasing adoption rate, from 19 percent last year to 37 percent last year. Users 45 and older, on the other hand, have been much slower to adopt Twitter or a similar service.

Interested parties can view the full Pew report here.

PMN asked 203 panel members about their day-to-day behavior including the time they spent visiting social networks, reading and writing email, texting, talking on the phone, watching TV, reading magazines and surfing the web (visiting non-social networking sites).

When asked what activity they would be least willing to give up for an entire week, only 9% responded with "social networks." However, 26% responded "email." Another 26% said they wouldn't give up texting, although that finding is less surprising and fits in with other known behavioral traits of this particular demographic.

The report also notes that the time spent on social networks is now nearly the same as the time spent emailing. Panelists reported spending 33 hours per month on social networks and 31 hours per month on email. The difference of 2 hours per month is somewhat negligible. What's unexpected is how close those two numbers are to each other.

Questionable Findings?

According to Michael Della Penna, PMN co-founder and Executive Chairman, Gen Y finds email more critical because it remains the central hub for "social networking updates, including alerts around new followers, discussion updates and friend requests." While that may be true to a point, if the only reason Gen Y desired email access was for the social networking updates, it seems they would just go to the source instead: the social networks themselves. Given a choice between the two, it would be likely that they would have chosen to give up email and not their Facebook accounts. Something else must be going on here.

These findings also somewhat contradict a wider study done by Pew Internet and American Life earlier this year which more deeply examined how the different generations use the Internet. At that time, the study showed that email was still "for old people," so to speak, and email usage among teens had dropped from 89% in 2004 to 73% in 2009. Meanwhile, Pew also found that out of all the demographic groups surveyed, Gen Y was the most likely to use social networks.

Then last month, the Online Publishers Association revealed that web surfers' use of social networking sites like Facebook had become so rampant that it was actually causing a decline in email use.

While neither study specifically compares Gen Y's use of email against that of social networking sites, both seem to imply that email use is trending down thanks to the impact of social networking. That's why it's odd to find that one of the more "connected" generations would be quicker to abandon those social sites in favor of the more antiquated medium.

So Why Would Gen Y Give Up Facebook, but Not Email?

The answer to that question could be something as simple as how the survey question was worded. After all, the survey asked which activity they would give up for a week. Ask them again which one they could give up permanently and you may get a different answer.

Another theory is that all the hype about how Generation Y doesn't care for email is just an overblown stereotype about a demographic that, in reality, isn't all that different from the rest of us...at least when it comes to our inbox addiction.

Or perhaps Gen Y is starting to grow up a bit. Now that a large majority of them have exited their "teen" years and have entered the job market, they have begun to learn the importance of email communications. And no, they aren't just for receiving Facebook updates and friend requests. Email may now involve business-critical messages which jobs depend upon.

Finally, it could be that Gen Y has just a touch of Facebook ennui. The network, which used to be an exclusive hang out, has now been overrun by Baby Boomers and other "old folks" including bosses, parents, and sometimes even grandparents. Meanwhile, many have "aged out" of MySpace, finding themselves no longer as interested in the glittery profiles and loud music that seemed much more attractive in their high school days.

In addition, although we don't have any hard data yet, there are reports that Gen Y users are finding solace in alternative, niche social media sites like FML, Failblog, TextsFromLastNight, and Sporcle. Though not typical "social networks," these timewaster sites skew heavily towards young, college-aged adults says Carol Phillips, president of Brand Amplitude, a marketing firm that focuses heavily on the millennial demographic.

In any event, there's no need to take the PMN's study as gospel, especially given its relatively small sample set. Still, it raises the question whether this purported change in behavior deserves further study. Has Gen Y succumbed to email addiction like the rest of us? Or have they always felt this way? We hope some more in-depth research will reveal those answers in the future.

The research study was commissioned by Gomez, Inc., a company that helps organizations optimize the performance of their web and mobile applications. Obviously, that means you have to take these findings with a grain of salt as the company clearly has a vested interest in making the mobile web sound worse off than actually is.

That being said, in reading through the findings, you'll probably find yourself agreeing with much of what's being said. For example, the study found that the majority of mobile phone users said they expected sites to load as quickly, nearly as quickly, or even faster on their mobile phones as compared to their PC. While intellectually, most of us know that's not going to be the case - broadband connections at home or work are generally much faster than accessing the web via a mobile handset - there's still a feeling of wanting the phone to perform the way we've become accustomed to...that is to say, FAST. Waiting for a non-mobilized site to load up in the phone's browser reminds us too much of the painful days of dial-up connections. It feels like we've regressed to an earlier time...like there's something wrong with the site.

When encountering these slow loading sites, half of consumers reported that they were only willing to wait 6-10 seconds or less for the site to load. Longer than that, and they'll give up, move on, and probably won't ever return. Sixty-one percent said it's unlikely that they would ever visit that site again from their mobile device while another forty percent said they would seek out a competitor's site that provided a similar service.

While slow speeds were the number one complaint, with 73% reporting having issues in the past year, other complaints pointed to a lack of well-designed and stable mobile-ready sites. 51% percent complained of sites that crashed, froze, or received an error and another 48% reported the formatting of the site made it difficult to read. Clearly, there is overlap in these numbers as the survey respondents reported multiple complaints. Overall, though, 60% of mobile users reported having one or more issues accessing a site from their mobile phones.

No Mobile Web Presence is Bad for Business

For businesses who maintain a web presence, the survey's findings highlight the potential consequences of ignoring the mobile web. There are more people surfing mobile sites than ever before - 56.9 million as of July, according to Nielsen. Companies who haven't given consideration to their mobile websites aren't just losing customers for that initial attempted transaction that goes bad - they're possibly losing those customers for good seeing as how many of those frustrated users claim they won't ever return to the site in question.   

Although the survey sample size was relatively small (just 1001 total respondents) and the company behind this wants to sell web optimization services, the findings seem to be believable. Anyone who's spent a good amount of time on the mobile web can assure you that it truly is in its infancy. So many sites are slow, aren't optimized for viewing from mobile handsets, and it is frustrating when you encounter them. Hopefully, businesses will begin to realize that if they want to compete with the next generation of web surfers, a "web presence" alone isn't enough. Today, you need a "mobile web presence" too.

This data comes from a new report put out by Arbor Networks, who has just completed a two-year study of 256 exabytes of Internet traffic data, the largest study of global traffic since the start of the commercial Internet in the mid-1990's.

The biggest trend to come out of Arbor Networks' report is clearly that of the Internet's consolidation. Today's Internet is "flatter" and "more densely connected" than ever before, reveals Arbor Networks' Chief Research Officer Danny McPherson. Not only is Google the largest traffic source, there are only 30 large companies in addition to Google and including sites like Facebook, Microsoft and YouTube which now account for a disproportionate 30% of all Internet traffic.

According to Craig Labovitz, chief scientist at Arbor Networks, this shift represents the Internet's move into a second phase where it's no longer "all about contacting websites." Rather, "over the past two years larger organizations have been buying up the smaller websites and by July 2009, 30 per cent of the internet was owned by a few large sites." The acquisitions, the result of billions of dollars spent by large companies snapping up smaller ones, has created a new Internet core of "hyper giants," a coin termed by the report.

The other companies making the list of Internet giants include names like Akamai, Limelight, BitGravity, Highwinds, and Gravity - hardly household names, and certainly not big telco providers. Instead, these content delivery networks (CDNs), are the new Internet backbone that help move large amounts of data across the web.

So Long P2P, Hello Streaming Media

Consolidation is not the only trend revealed by the new findings, however. The report also discovered a sharp decline in peer-to-peer traffic, which only two years prior peaked at 40% of all traffic worldwide. Today, while still a hefty number, P2P traffic has dropped down to 18%. Why the change? For the most part, the file-sharing that took place on networks like Limewire and Napster back in the late 90's and early 2000's, has now been largely replaced by streaming video thanks to to sites like YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix. Given easier and less technical ways of accessing media, consumers have begun to shift away from the headache of P2P to these new and often free or ad-supported sites. Today, as much as 20% of web traffic is video, Labovitz estimates.

As far as Internet traffic in general, more than half (52%) is web-based, up from 42% in 2007. The remaining traffic comes from email and private networks.

A "Dramatic" Shift?

"Saying the Internet has changed dramatically over the last five years is cliché - the Internet is always changing dramatically," notes Labovitz. "However, over the course of the last five years, we've witnessed the start of an equally dramatic shift in the fundamental business of the Internet." He adds, "as content is getting faster and better quality it will change the face of the internet."]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_accounts_for_6_of_all_internet_traffic.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_accounts_for_6_of_all_internet_traffic.php Google Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:38:11 -0800 Sarah Perez Researchers at Pennsylvania State University recently revealed the results of a study which looked into how people were using Twitter to talk about products. Companies, of course, fear what a negative barrage of tweets can do to their brand, leading many to establish Twitter accounts themselves to provide information, customer service, and support. As it turns out, these businesses may not need to worry too much about what the "Twitter effect" can do to their image after all. The study revealed that the number of brand-related tweets where sentiment is expressed is not the dominating force that you may think. In fact, the majority of tweets mentioning a brand are merely casual comments or tweets from someone giving or seeking information. And when sentiment is expressed, it's generally positive.

According to the study, which looked at 150,000 tweets, 11.1% of the brand-related tweets were information-providing while 18.1% were information-seeking. The latter of these two is especially useful to companies looking to understand what questions and concerns customers have about their products. However, the large majority of the tweets - 48.5% - were simply comments made in passing which mentioned the brand but whose primary focus was something else.

The remaining 22.3% of tweets were sentiment-related, meaning tweets in which a user was expressing an opinion about a brand, either negative or positive. What was surprising about this subset was that users were more likely to express positive tweets than they were to complain.

Why So Cheery, Twitter?

This seems odd, actually, given that the Internet has typically been a place for disgruntled consumers to rant and rave more so than it's been a place to praise what works. You can see this type of negative sentiment expressed everywhere from online forums to whiny blog posts about how such-and-such company "did me wrong!" In fact, the desire to express a negative opinion even seems to dominate feedback systems like blog comments, for example. Rarely does a writer receive comments like "great post" or "I totally agree" - rather, more comments resemble "you're wrong and here's why" or "how could you not mention X?"

That's why it's strange to hear that on Twitter, it's positive sentiment that reigns. What makes this platform different from the rest of the Internet as a whole? Are Twitter users simply happier people? Or has the data been skewed by marketing campaigns where Twitter users are encouraged to tweet nice things about the company in order to win a prize?

Perhaps it's because Twitter simply makes it easier to express yourself, allowing for a better balance between negative and positive sentiments. Typically, sharing your opinion on the web meant exerting a good deal of effort. Writing a blog post, recording a video, or leaving a blog comment are things that take time. For the most part, busy, information-overloaded web surfers aren't going to take that time unless something really gets them fired up. Twitter, on the other hand, is so quick and easy to use, you can post a missive of joy in only seconds. And the 140-character limit allows you a no-pressure way of doing so.

Indeed it will.

Within the SELFMAN project, there are four key areas determined to be vital in order for a distributed application to have the ability to manage itself: self-configuring, self-tuning, self-healing, and self-protecting.

To configure itself, an application needs to track all of its components, update them when needed, and make sure that all the different pieces are able to communicate with each other. Within the SELFMAN system, an individual component can be queried for this information, such as its version number and which other components it interacts with. If the version number is out-of-date, it would be automatically updated.

The self-tuning piece of the system involves having the application automatically adjust to changing loads as well as changes taking place among the various nodes on the network. To do so, it uses a load-balancing algorithm that detects overloads, node crashes, and other disruptions.

What was more challenging for the researchers was the self defense aspect of the SELFMAN system. They discovered that the safest systems were not those in which nodes are directly linked, but those in which nodes can communicate with other nodes in just a few steps. Within these sorts of networks, dubbed "small world" networks, the SELFMAN security service can automatically detect abnormal behavior and eject bad nodes as needed.

Results So Far

Already the team has had promising results. For example, Scalaris, an open-source scalable transactional storage for Web 2.0 services won first prize in the IEEE International Scalable Computing Challenge 2008. Peer-to-peer video streaming application PeerTV uses SELFMAN to quickly test an evaluate new P2P components. There's also a demo of a distributed Wikipedia that can handle more queries than the current version and a graphics program that lets multiple users collaborate on a design.

Van Roy believes that SELFMAN represents the first step towards an internet filled with "unbreakable" applications. "Right now we're just scratching the surface," he says.

For more information about these applications, stay tuned to ICT Results, a European research tracking firm, which will soon highlight the various applications in more detail.

Those claims are now being further backed up by the Nielsen study, which, in addition to noting the financial discrepancies, also discovered that many social networking users tend to be urbanites, especially those engaged in blogging and tweeting.

The study examined seven of the most popular social networking and blogging sites including Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, Twitter, WordPress, ClassmatesOnline, and LinkedIn. Through the Claritas product, Nielsen segments their online panel of 200,000+ participants into demographically and behaviorally distinct groups which include everything from "Young Digerati" to "Heartlanders." After doing so, they found a notable difference between the two top social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace.

According to the research, the top third of lifestyle segments relative to affluence (aka the "richest" users) are 25% more likely to use Facebook than those in the lower third. The bottom third segments related to affluence (aka the "poorest") are 37% more likely to use MySpace. Also of note, Facebook users are more likely to use LinkedIn, a site for professional business networking, and again, another factor which points towards the differences in demographics between the two social networks.

Besides confirming the income discrepancies between MySpace and Facebook, Nielsen also discovered that those involved in blogging and tweeting tend to live in more urban areas such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. The 12 "Urban" lifestyle groups tracked by the company are more likely to use Blogger, WordPress, and Twitter than the 22 "Town and Rural" segments. However, there was no mention of these groups being more affluent, just more urban.

To conduct the research, Kostakos worked with a large sample of online ratings. As MIT's Technology Review reports, the researcher and his team studied hundreds of thousands of items and millions of votes across all three sites. In each and every case, they discovered that small numbers of users accounted for the largest number of ratings. For example, on Amazon, only 5% of active Amazon users ever cast votes on more than 10 products but a small handful of users voted on hundreds of items. Said Kostakos, "if you have two or three people voting 500 times, the results may not be representative of the community overall."

This is hardly the first time that the so-called "wisdom of the crowds" has been called into question. The term, which implies that a diverse collection of individuals makes more accurate decisions and predications than individuals or even experts, has been used in the past to describe how everything from Wikipedia to user-generated news sites like Digg.com offer better services than anything created by a smaller group could do.

Of course, we now know that simply isn't true. For one thing, Wikipedia isn't written and edited by the "crowd" at all. In fact, 1% of Wikipedia users are responsible for half of the site's edits. Even Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, has been quoted as saying that the site is really written by a community, "a dedicated group of a few hundred volunteers."

And as for Digg.com, a site whose algorithm is constantly tweaked in attempts to democratize the votes of its users, it still remains a place where a handful of power users can make or break getting a news item to the site's front page.

Attempts to Address the Issue

It's not surprising then to discover that, when it comes to review sites, it's again small groups that are in control there too. Some sites, including Amazon, attempt to address this discrepancy by allowing users to vote on the helpfulness of reviews - a much easier process than having to write a review yourself. Also, local business finder and recommendations site Yelp implemented ways for business owners to respond to what they feel are inaccurate reviews by way of an owner comments feature. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, the small groups still remain in control of these so-called "popular opinion" features.

According to the article, another professor at CMU, Niki Kittur, suggested that sites create new tools for transparency. For example, there should be an easy way to see a summary of a user's contributions which would quickly reveal any bias. He also suggested removing overly positive and negative reviews.

Earlier this year, we looked at another user-generated review site which attacked this problem from another angle. Lunch.com, a new Yelp competitor, uses something they call their "Similarity Network" which matches you to other site users who share your interests. That way, instead of looking at a list of reviews which could originate from anyone with an agenda or axe to grind, you're focused on reviews from others like you.

Still, there is yet to be a perfect solution to the problem. Perhaps it's time we give up the idea that the "wisdom of the crowds" was ever a driving force behind any socialized, user-generated anything and realize that, just like in life, there will always be active participants as well as the passive passerbys.

In 2003, people spent 46% of their time online using sites which fall into the "communications" category - that is, sites whose core capabilities are email and instant messaging. By 2009, that usage dropped to 27% or a 41% decline in overall use.

Although "community" sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn weren't measured back in 2003 when the first analysis was performed, OPA introduced the new category in 2008 at which point they were able to see the impact the social networks had on the habits of online users. While obviously it's not just Facebook which is to blame for the declining use of email and IM, there's no doubt that the world's largest social network plays a more significant role than the others here.

Why Social Networks are Replacing Email

As to why social networking sites have led to declining use of other communication tools, Pam Horan, president of the OPA, speculates that it's because people can conduct the same activities on the social networks as they did before via email, IM, and other communication properties, but now they can do so more efficiently.

While we would argue that in the business world, emailing is still an essential, "can't live without it" tool, it's not so far-fetched to say that Facebook and the like have changed mainstream users' online behavior. Want to share a funny video? Post it to your profile. Have new pictures from your vacation? Upload them to an online album. These are precisely the sorts of online activities that only a few years ago took place primarily via email messages. Social networking has undoubtedly changed that.

And Gen Y Hates Email, Right?

Then there are the constant news stories about how the younger generations, specifically Generation Y and Z, don't use email. "Email is unfashionable and outdated," claims a recent ZDNet headline pointing to a recent story about Boston College's decision to stop handing out email addresses to incoming students. These types of stories are barely even news anymore as the common perception is that communication among these younger groups takes place via social networks (and, of course, text messaging).

Oddly enough, the belief that Gen Y hates email seems to be somewhat contradicted by the late-breaking news that, out of all other demographic groups, it's Gen Y which is most likely to opt-in for email marketing messages. Still that doesn't show that email is their preferred medium, only that they're more open to using it for less-than-personal types of communication. That trend makes sense as they probably don't even think of email as the place to connect with friends and family - that's what social networks are for - so why not use it for collecting coupons instead?

Other Findings

OPA's research also revealed that visits to content sites have increased over the past five years - up 24% since 2003. Time spent on these sites has increased dramatically, too, with an 88% increase since 2003. Today, Internet users spend an average of 6:58 hours on content sites per month. Search and Commerce round out the categories OPA studied with search seeing an increase from 3% to 5% and commerce seeing a slight decline from 16% to 13%.

OPA's Internet Activity Index (IAI), as the research is called, is conducted by Nielsen/NetRatings. It tracks usage across all the above mentioned categories but excludes .gov and .edu domains as well as adult-oriented sites.

An interesting side note here is that the IAI shows the time spent using communications sites is 4:54 hours per month while community sites are at 3:01 hours. That actually contradicts Nielsen's earlier findings from March of this year which claimed that social networks and blogs were now more popular than email based on time spent. This discrepancy in data means we're taking these latest findings and those that came before it with the proverbial grain of salt and you should too. However, what we can take away from both reports is that, numbers aside, email is definitely being impacted by the social networking trend.

The MySpace study asked social networking users between the ages of 14 and 21 (aka "Generation Y") questions about their interactions both on social networks and in their real life, too. Some 36% of the respondents said they found it easier to talk about themselves online than in the real world, leading them to share more about themselves using technology. This group also felt that their online friends knew more about them, and so, in a sense, were closer than offline friends because they all knew what was going on in each other's lives.

Outside of the social networking sites, the survey respondents overwhelmingly felt ill-at-ease in social groups. A whopping 72% said they felt "left out" and didn't think they fit into any particular group. More than four-fifths (82%) said they moved between four or more different groups of friends in an effort to find acceptance.

It's not entirely surprising that the younger generation feels this way. The teen years (and young adulthood to some extent) are a time when kids start exploring and experimenting with many different aspects of their personalities as they attempt to solidify who they are and who they will become as adults. What's interesting, though, is how social networking is having an impact on this traditional coming-of-age process. Instead of simply feeling disjointed, confused, and lonely, today's younger generation has an outlet for connecting with their peers which previous generations did not: the internet.

Says Rebekah Horne, MySpace Europe managing director, the study provides insight into how this generation is "using online as a way to explore and settle into their burgeoning identities."

But at what cost?

Will the younger generations remain awkward and shy in the real world as they age, only finding comfort in their interactions that occur online? Or does having an outlet for their feelings simply lessen the blow delivered by the otherwise often harsh process that is growing up?

In many ways, easy access to technology can be seen as both a blessing and a curse for this young group of digital natives. These days, you'll often encounter teens having text message conversations or posting status updates while ignoring the very friends they're present with in the real world. Behavior like this could certainly send a message to the others that they are second priority to whomever else has engaged their friend's attention. That could easily lead to feelings of being "left out" as reported in this study.

And yet, at the same time, it's this very technology that's allowing the teens and young adults to feel like they have friends who know them and care about them.The issue is balancing that online life with the one out in the real world.

The question as to whether this sort of behavior is healthy is one best left to psychologists to analyze and report, but there's no doubt that at the very least, it is having an impact.

Image credit: flickr user Paulo Fehlauer

Tip RWW <-- Just grab that link and give it a click any time you're on a page you want to share with us. An email window will open (just using a mailto: link) pre-populated with the link and page title, addressed to us. Hit send, maybe add a note if you like. Breaking news, good background information, critiques of the things we've written - whatever you like. We'll give you credit for anything we use in a post, unless you ask us not to. Consider yourself part of the RWW team.

We've got a healthy staff of about 10 writers and researchers (and a small army of robots, it's true), but why limit story discovery to our own staff? If you'd like to help, your help will be much appreciated.

What do you think of this idea? We'd love to hear any feedback you've got - we don't know why we didn't think of it earlier.

Thanks to Jay Meattle of Shareaholic for providing the javascript to make this elegant!