For Americans, Internet is more essential than ever

The Pew Research Internet Project unveiled a new study looking at how Americans’ lives and attitudes have changed over the course of the Web’s life. Internet has become so essential that they’d rather give up television than Internet access.

According to this new study, over half of Internet users (53%) say the Internet would be very hard to give up and 61% of those people consider the web essential to their daily lives.
Broadened to the entire adult population, this year’s results indicate that 46% of all American adults would find it very hard to give up the internet. By comparison, the 49% of cell phone owners who say it would be very hard to give up their phone translates to 44% of all adults. And only 35% of adults feel the same way about their TV.

Overall, the internet hasn’t only had an impact in terms of leisure but also on work, society and Americans’ social lives. 90% of internet users say the internet has been a good thing for them personally. Some 76% believe that the internet has been a good thing for society, while 15% say it has been a bad thing and 8% say it has been equally good and bad.