A dramatic recent change in civil society is the opportunity to participate via computers and digital networks. The key question for our purposes is whether new technologies have increased our civic involvement or, in the words of Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup, whether "online technologies could bring us together more offline."

In the short history of the Internet, attention has fallen on one or two online technologies at a time. E-mails and message boards shifted to web sites and then blogs and social networking pages. What we see now is a proliferation of technologies that are used for civic purposes. The older technologies remain most common but they have been joined by new ones.


18 Million Bloggers
Some technologies do not draw large proportions of people, but they still represent mass phenomena. For example, 7.7 percent of the sample claimed that they used their own blogs (online diaries or frequently updated web pages) to discuss political, social, or community issues. That is a minority, but it would still constitute approximately 18 million Americans. We suspect that self-identified bloggers include people who use the blog or daily notes features on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

While activities on the Internet may not have as much civic value as face-to-face participation, much important civic and political work is now happening online. Over the past few months, sites such as YouTube have hosted political debates or featured announcements from candidates launching their candidacies for President.

Americans also use a wide range of Internet technologies to collect or follow the news. Some of the sites that people use are basically online versions of traditional news organizations such as metropolitan daily newspapers. But an important recent development is the proliferation of sites that allow visitors to share their own material and to vote on what others have posted.

Another way of asking about online civic engagement is to pose questions about the reasons that people use the Internet. The most common civic purposes include signing petitions and visiting campaign web sites.


The Most Engaged—41 Million "Netizens"
Just as we focused above on a minority of citizens who perform "citizen-centered" work, we now focus on a group of deeply engaged online citizens. We call the people who use the Internet for three or more civic purposes "netizens." They constitute 24 percent of the population, or 41 million people, according to our sample.

Contrary to predictions that the Internet might replace face-to-face participation, the survey finds no tradeoff. In fact, the netizens are much more likely than other people to attend public meetings in which there was discussion of community affairs (38 percent versus 23 percent), attend a club meeting (72 percent versus 47 percent) or take part in a protest or demonstration (31 percent versus 15 percent).

Being a Netizen also correlates with doing "citizen-centered" work. Of those who are citizen- centered, 36 percent are also netizens. Of those who are not citizen-centered, only 22 percent are netizens.


An Age Effect—Active Seniors Offline & Baby Boomers and Matures More Active Online
Despite the general correlation between the netizens and those who are engaged in "citizen- centered" work, these are not identical populations. The most obvious difference involves age. Older people are more likely to be involved in "citizen-centered" work but less likely to be netizens; and these differences are pronounced.

Age also influences the specific technologies that people use for civic purposes. For example, 38 percent of teenagers (age 13-17) use Instant Messaging to express their views about social, political or community issues, compared to 11 percent of seniors. Ten percent of 13-17-year-olds have used their own blog for political, social, or community purposes, compared to one percent of senior citizens. Chat rooms are not especially popular among teenagers.

Even though the younger generations are more likely to be netizens than their elders, the oldest generations are more likely to use more established Internet technologies, such as e-mail, for political and social purposes. Young people are more likely to use blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, or wiki sites to get information about political or social issues than their adult counterparts. However, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers are more likely to use Google or professional news web sites to gather information about political or social issues than their younger or older counterparts.

When we combine all technologies, we find, surprisingly, that Baby Boomers and Matures are more likely to use the Internet to express opinions on social and political issues than young people or Gen-Xers. This pattern is driven by e-mail, still the leading tool for online civic communication.

Similarly, the Millennials are the least likely to use all major sources of news, including the Internet. They lag the furthest behind in newspaper readership, but even online, the oldest Americans far surpass the Millennials as news consumers.

It appears that younger generations are more comfortable online and adopt new online tools more quickly, but they are less interested in civic and political issues and therefore relatively unlikely to use technology to obtain news or express opinions. Besides, the older generations are now comfortable enough with established technologies, such as e-mail and web browsers, that they can outpace their children and grandchildren's generations in online civic engagement.

Young people are most likely to have used the Internet to find opportunities to volunteer. (Other data show that they have high volunteering rates, in general.) However, the "Matures"—those born before 1945—are most likely to have used the Internet to donate money to a political campaign, reflecting their generally high level of wealth and political engagement. The Matures are the least likely to say they have used the Internet to find a civic engagement opportunity, yet over half in our sample have used the Internet for such activities.