From smartphones to social media, tech use has become the norm. As of 2019, nine-in-ten U.S. adults say they go online, 81% say they own a smartphone and 72% say they use social media. Growth in adoption of some technologies has slowed in recent years, in some instances because there just aren’t many non-users left, especially among younger generations. For example, 93% of Millennials (ages 23 to 38 in 2019) own smartphones, and nearly 100% say they use the internet.
Social media is now a key pathway to news for Americans. In 2018, for the first time, social media sites surpassed print newspapers as a news source for Americans. One-in-five adults said they often get news from social media, slightly higher than the share who often did so from print newspapers (16%). Among social media sites, Facebook dominates in terms of news consumption: Around half of all U.S. adults (52%) now say they get news there.
Millennials have surpassed Generation Xers as the largest generation in the U.S. labor force. There were 57 million Millennials (born 1981 to 1996) working or looking for work in 2018. That was more than the 53 million Gen Xers (born 1965 to 1980) and well ahead of the 38 million Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964).
As the 2010s draw to a close, here are key ways the country looks different from 10 years ago, including:
📱 technological advancements
👵👧 demographic shifts
👨❤️👨 major changes in public opinion https://t.co/aWOLaFIFDY— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) December 20, 2019