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College Students Lead in Internet Use and Tech Gadgets

College Students Lead in Internet Use and Tech Gadgets
7/20/2011
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Suada Kolovic

When it comes to Internet use, college students have high schoolers beat. According to a study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, young adults – particularly undergraduate and graduate students – are more likely to use the Internet and own tech devices than the rest of the general population.

The study compiled data collected from Pew Internet Project surveys throughout 2010 and featured a sample size of nearly 10,000. The study found that nonstudents ages 18 to 24 were more active on social networks than were college students and sent updates more regularly on Facebook and Twitter. Regardless of educational background, however, it’s clear that young adults ages 18 to 24 were more likely to be Internet users, to engage in social media and own web-enabled devices like laptops and smartphones.

Community college students exhibited a slight edge in mobile Internet use, which Aaron W. Smith, a Pew senior research specialist, attributed to a trend among lower socioeconomic groups to use mobile phones as their primary mode of Internet access. Web-enabled mobile phones may also reflect the fact that nearly 100 percent of college students and 92 percent of nonstudents in the 18- to 24-year-old range were Internet users, compared to only 75 percent of adults using the Internet.

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