Mainstream Or Warning Sign?

The Internet Becomes Mainstream. So says a Pew Research Center report, released last week, which finds that 63% of the adult U.S. population regularly uses the Internet. While Pew found "increasing reliance on the Internet in everyday life and higher expectations about the way the Internet can be used in matters both mundane and mighty," the report also warns that "[d]espite this growth in activity, the growth of the online population itself has slowed. There was almost no growth over the course of 2002 and there has been only a small uptick in recent months." And it is even more problematic that "[a]bout a quarter of Americans live lives that are quite distant from the Internet –- they have never been online, and don’t know many others who use the Internet." So while the mainstream media, like the New York Times, headlined "The Growing Web," we may actually be seeing warning signs that the Internet is reaching its peak.

 Posted by glenn