It may come as a surprise to those of a certain age group, but millennials are more likely than their elders to say important information is not available on the Internet. Younger folks also are more likely to have read a book in the last year and are just as engaged in their libraries as older individuals.
At least those are conclusions from the latest work of the Pew Research Center Internet Project, which has pulled together years of research on the role of libraries in Americans lives, with a special focus on millennials — generally identified as people ages 16-29.
The results, from three national surveys of Americans 16 years of age and older, found that 62 percent of Americans under 30 years old agree that there is “a lot of useful, important information that is not available on the Internet,” say Kathryn Zickhur and Lee Rainie, authors of a Sept. 10 report on the survey. By comparison, 53 percent of older Americans said they believe that.
In addition, the research showed that among those 16-29 years of age, half reported using a bookmobile or library in the past year, slightly higher than the 47 percent of those at 30 years or older who had done the same. And, 88 percent of millennials reported reading a book in the last year, compared with 79 percent for those 30 years old and above, the research shows.
Yet that use may not reflect that millennials place a high priority on libraries. The research shows that 19 percent of them say their library’s closing would have a major impact on them and their family, compared with 32 percent of older adults.
“It’s important to note that age is not the only factor in Americans’ engagement with public libraries, nor the most important,” Zickhur and Rainie wrote. They noted that individuals with “extensive economic, social, technological and cultural resources” are also more likely to use and value libraries.
Stronger connections with public libraries can be associated with “key life moments such as having a child, seeking a job, being a student and going through a situation in which research and data can help inform a decision,” the authors wrote.
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“As a result the picture of younger Americans’ engagement with public libraries is complex and sometimes contradictory, as we examine their habits and attitudes at different life stages.”
Many results of the project were pulled from a survey of 6,224 Americans of those ages and conducted in fall 2013.
The full report is available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/09/10/younger-americans-and-public-libraries/
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