Polls

AUSTIN, Texas - A donkey and elephant in tow, Americans Elect showed up at the annual South by Southwest conference to promote its plan for the first national online presidential primary. The donkey and elephant mascots sparred in the conference halls to highlight what Americans Elect sees as the conflicts between Democrats and Republicans.

"The current candidates are good people who are trapped in a system that is making them say and do things that are not inspiring to American citizens," said Kahlil Byrd, CEO of Americans Elect, a successor to the 2008 group Unity08. "The issues are chosen for you, and the more contentious,the better."

Under the system, registered voters can sign up to nominate candidates to run separately from the two main political parties. Americans Elect has been criticized for not disclosing who its donors are, but organizers say 400,000 people have signed on to vote and the effort has caught the eye of the Obama campaign.

"Why should the primaries and the media define who we get to vote for?" asked Americans Elect chief technology officer Joshua Levine.

So far, the undeclared candidates look pretty mainstream, with Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas; former Gov. Jon Hunstman, R-Utah; and President Obama among the top "drafted" candidates. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are also near the top of the list.

Among the candidates who have sought the nomination, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer leads the pack. California activist Michealene Risley (currently third among declared candidates) said she was drafted by someone else, but is grateful for the chance to run.

"It gives us an opportunity to start working and stop complaining," she said.

While increasing numbers of savvy Internet users may Tweet and use Facebook, nearly all adults who go online still use e-mail and search engines, a new survey released Tuesday found.

The latest survey released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that e-mail and search engines are still among the most popular activities for adults who go online with 92 percent of adult Internet users saying they use of both. The survey, conducted April 26-May 22 of 2,277 adults, found that about six in 10 adult Internet users said they use search engines or e-mail on a daily basis.

"Email and search form the core of online communication and online information gathering, respectively. And they have done so for nearly a decade, even as new platforms, broadband and mobile devices continue to reshape the way Americans use the Internet and Web," Pew said in its report on the survey. "Perhaps the most significant change over that time is that both activities have become more habitual."

Nearly 20 percent of all American adults now use the Internet to make phone calls, according to a new survey released Monday from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.

The findings show a big jump from 2007, when 6 percent of adults reported using the Internet to make calls. Overall, 24 percent of all Internet users said in the latest survey that they make phone calls online.

"People are becoming more aware of it and the devices themselves are little bit more enabling of it," Pew Internet & American Life Project Director Lee Rainie said,

The survey includes both users of video telephone services such as Skype and those who use Internet services such as a Vonage plan to make phone calls using their home telephone.

Hispanics were the biggest users, with 27 percent reporting they use the Internet to make phone calls compared with 21 percent of both blacks and whites. The survey also found that Internet phone users were more likely to be 18-29 years old, college educated and earning more than $75,000 a year.

The survey will likely be good news to Microsoft, which announced earlier this month that it is buying Skype for $8.5 billion.

The survey of 846 adults was conducted April 26 through May 22 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percent.

A new report released Wednesday from the Pew Hispanic Center found that while Hispanics have much lower levels of home broadband use compared with whites, the gap narrows when it comes to cell phone use.

The report found that only 45 percent of Hispanics use broadband at home, compared with 65 percent of whites and 52 percent of blacks. While Hispanics and blacks had about the same levels of Internet use in 2010, about 65 percent, they still lagged behind whites, 77 percent of whom reported going online.

The technology gap narrows when it comes to cell phone use by Hispanics. Hispanics reported having the lowest levels of cell phone ownership at 76 percent, compared with 79 percent for blacks and 85 percent for whites.

The report suggests that the lower levels of technology use by Hispanics are linked to their income and education levels.

"Hispanics, on average, have lower levels of education and earn less than whites," according to the report. "Controlling for these factors, the differences in internet use, home broadband access and cell phone use between Hispanics and whites disappear."

The report found that Hispanics and whites both access the Internet using their cell phones at similar rates. Unlike most whites, Hispanics report using their cell phones to go online because they lack a home Internet connection. The survey found 6 percent of Hispanics who use their cell phones to access the Internet say they do not have Internet access at home, compared with only 1 percent for whites.

Overall, 41 percent of blacks reported using their cell phones to access the Internet compared with 31 percent of Hispanics and 29 percent for whites. "This ethnic difference in dependency upon a cell phone for internet use is partially, but not entirely, related to ethnic differences in educational attainment and income," according to the report.

When it comes to text messaging, Hispanics lag a little behind whites and blacks, 55 percent to 61 percent for both whites and blacks, the report found.

The survey of 3,001 adults was conducted Aug. 9-Sept. 13 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

A new report by the Pew Research Center released Thursday shows that older Americans are catching up to younger generations in their use and ownership of electronic devices.

According to the report, 85 percent of adults own cell phones, with 90 percent of all adults living in a household with at least one mobile phone. Perhaps more surprising, more than 60 percent of adults 75 and older live in households with cell phones.

Despite the increase in mobile electronics, desktop computers remain the most popular with adults ages 35-65, while 70 percent of younger adults own a laptop, the report states. Mp3 players are also most popular among adults ages 18-34, but almost half of all adults say they rock out with a mobile music player.

Where do the generations agree? On game consoles, tablets and e-book readers, according to the report. Sixty-three percent of American adults say they own an electronic game system. E-books and tablets readers remain new, and relatively rare, electronic devices for Americans. Only 4 percent of adults said they own an iPad or other tablet computer and 5 percent reported owning e-book readers.

As expected, the oldest Americans tend to lag behind their younger neighbors in use of new technologies. While 9 percent of all Americans said they do not own any of the devices in the study, 43 percent of adults over 75 say they don't own any such devices.

According to the study, younger "Millennials" between 18 and 34 years old not only owned more devices, but used a wider range of functions.

"For instance, most cell phone owners only use two of the main non-voice functions on their phones: taking pictures and text messaging," the report states. "However, most Millennials also use their phones to surf the internet, send email, play games, listen to music, and record videos."

The study, which included 1,000 interviews by cell phone, was based on a survey of 3,001 American adults and was conducted in August and September 2010. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

More than a quarter of U.S. adults used their cell phones to either learn or participate in this year's midterm elections, according to a survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.

"Mobile connectivity has become a growing feature in all kinds of communication and information exchanges--including politics--and mobile connectivity is becoming a regular feature of political campaigns," according to the survey's report.

Among those who said they had used their cell phone for an election-related activity, most (14 percent) used it to tell others they had voted, 12 percent used their phone to monitor election or political news, and 10 percent sent text messages related to the election to friends, family members or others. Despite the promise of mobile technology as a new avenue to reach out to voters, only 1 percent used a cell phone app to get updates from a candidate or interest group about the election or to contribute to a candidate or interest group.

Those most likely to use their cell phone to learn about or participate in the 2010 election were between the age of 18 and 29, African American and male. The survey found 29 percent of men surveyed, 39 percent of 18-29 year olds, and 36 percent of blacks used their cell phones for some election-related activity. In addition, the survey found those most likely to use their phone for this activity were also college-educated and made more than $75,000 a year.

While 82 percent of U.S. adults have cell phones, 71 percent of cell owners surveyed said they voted in the 2010 elections. This is a much higher percentage than the overall 40 percent turnout rate reported for the midterm election.

The survey was conducted Nov. 3-24 of 2,257 adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The Pew Research Center's first-ever study that exclusively examined Twitter users found that 8 percent of U.S. adults online use the micro-blogging platform.

The survey, released Thursday from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, shows that Twitter users are disproportionately minorities, urban residents and young. Eighteen percent of Twitter users are Hispanic while 13 percent are black and 5 percent are white, according to the survey.

The questions about Twitter usage were asked as part of a post-election tracking survey conducted in November of roughly 2,300 adult Internet users ages 18 and older. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

Pew said 14 percent of respondents who said they use Twitter are between the ages of 18 and 29; half that amount use Twitter in the 30 to 49 year old category. Internet users who live in the city are roughly twice as likely to use Twitter as rural dwellers.

Separate surveys, conducted in October by Pew's polling partner, Princeton Survey Research Associates International, found that one quarter of Twitter users check in to the site multiple times per day. Pew noted, however, that due to a modest overall sample size, the statistics from these surveys should be "best understood as directional findings with a relatively large margin of error."

The October surveys explored what kind of content users are tweeting and found that 72 percent of users say they post updates related to their personal life, activities or interests.

Higher-income Americans are among the most avid users of the Internet and cell phones according to a new study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

The study found that 95 percent of those in households earning $75,000 or more a year use the Internet at least occasionally and 93 percent of this group has access to high-speed Internet service such as a cable modem or DSL. Of those in household making less than $75,000 a year, 70 percent reported using the Internet on occasion and 85 percent of them have access to broadband Internet service.

The survey also found that high-income Americans also are more likely to own a cell phone, 95 percent for those making more than $75,000 compared with 83 percent for those making less than this amount.

The survey also found that those with the highest incomes, more than $150,000 annually, are much more likely to get their news online than those making less than $30,000 a year, 80 percent compared to 60 percent.

"The correlation between higher income and increased internet usage was consistent for nearly every online activity and technology," center Senior Fellow Jim Jansen said in a statement. "Income was a significant factor, even when accounting for other attributes, such as age, education, race, gender, and community type."

A new poll released Wednesday found most of those surveyed say doctors, health technology systems, health insurance companies, hospitals and labs should not be allowed to share or sell patients' health information without their consent.

The online interactive survey of 2,000 adults was conducted by Zogby International for the health privacy watchdog group Patients Privacy Rights.

The poll found 97 percent of those surveyed said doctors, health technology systems, hospitals and labs should not be allowed to sell or share their personal health information without consent, while 98 percent want the same standard applied to insurance companies.

During a conference call with reporters, physician Deborah Peel, the group's founder and chairwoman, said insurance companies are increasingly selling aggregated data about their customers. While the companies say they do not reveal the identities of their customers, Peel argued that "it's too easy to re-identify" those customers.

Other findings from the poll found 91 percent support giving patients control over who can access their electronic health records; 87 percent say patients should decide who can see or use their health information; and 78 percent said they would be more likely to use a website that gave users a say in who can see or use the health information they provide to the site.

Peel noted that websites that provide medical information often gather and sell information provided by their users. She called on Congress to pass legislation that would require consent from patients before using their medical information. A handful of measures were introduced in Congress this year that would require patient consent before medical information or other highly sensitive information such as financial data could be shared or used by others. "The bottom line is that we have to solve this problem at some point with a law" from Congress, Peel said.

The survey, conducted Aug. 24-26, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

A new study released Thursday found that up to 50 percent of healthcare providers have either adopted electronic health records or are partially using them.

The study released by CompTIA found that 34 percent of healthcare providers now use a "comprehensive" electronic health records system and 16 percent said they are using a partial system. About 29 percent said they are evaluating their options while 20 percent have not looked at the issue. The study, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points, was conducted in two parts and surveyed 370 U.S. information technology firms, about 40 percent of which do business in the healthcare sector, and 300 U.S. healthcare providers.

Of those who have adopted electronic health records, 59 percent said they were "completely" or "mostly satisfied," and 36 percent said they were partly satisfied and partly dissatisfied, with dentists reporting higher rates of satisfaction, 70 percent compared with 57 percent for medical doctors. Reliability was cited as the biggest complaint by providers.

"Healthcare providers have clear objectives for their IT investments - reducing costs, saving time, improving productivity and most importantly, improving patient care," CompTIA Vice President of Research Tim Herbert said in a statement. "Anything that may disrupt patient care is a serious issue, so product reliability is especially critical."

In an interview, Alice Borrelli, Intel's director of global health and workforce policy, credited the billions included in last year's economic stimulus package for health information technology with helping to drive up electronic health record adoption rates.

"I don't think it would have happened" without the stimulus funding, she said, noting that in 2006, only 11 percent of healthcare providers had adopted electronic health records. "This is a program critical to really making a difference in health care. It saves lives," she added.

The stimulus included funding to help healthcare providers adopt health IT, providing $44,000 for each doctor to help defray the costs of switching to electronic health records.

While Borrelli gave high marks to the Obama administration's health IT efforts, she said she would like to see funding extended to so-called "hand-off" providers, such as physical therapists and others who step in to care for patients after they leave the hospital or a doctor's office. She said Congress would have to change the eligibility requirements and allocate additional funding for such providers.