While the Internet has received much blame for beating down old businesses (most notably, print media like newspapers and magazines), we hardly hear anyone talking about the good the Internet is doing during the recession.
So, it’s a breath of fresh air when a report comes out detailing every which way a huge percentage of people are using the Internet to their advantage during hard times.
About 69% of American adults, who compose 88% of the country’s Internet users, are utilizing the Internet to cope with and respond to personal problems created by the recession, according to a report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Identifying two key paths in recession-related Internet activities, the Project’s Director, Lee Rainie, says that people are “seeking highly practical advice about how to survive. And they are going online to gain understanding of what went wrong, and what policies might fix the economy.”
The most common economic-related use of the Internet evidenced in the report, unsurprisingly, is price comparisons. Two-thirds of users are scouring the Web for the best deals on purchases and over a third seek out actual coupons. Beyond that, it seems that Americans are just trying to get educated. About half go online to find information to explain the situation currently afflicting the world. Finally, 41% of people are using the Internet for just plain job-searching.
As Pew points out, this research does not at all say that people are completely replacing their old ways with online methods. Instead, we must assume that people are adapting to changes in the world by supplementing their normal way of doing things with the power of the Web.
Furthermore, this isn’t only about finding a new job.
As Rainie points out, “In many cases, the internet is also a pathway to contributing ideas – and rants – about hard times and a source of expert commentary.”
Social networking sites are continually showing evidence of not just being friend networks, for 34% of users studied are sharing reactions to the recession on Web sites like Twitter and Facebook. As more and more people use the status update to express worries about job loss and money problems, it becomes clear that these sites are literally merging with traditional physical communities by becoming places for sharing sympathy and advice.
