Americans who use the Internet consider it at least as important as newspapers and books, and more important than television, radio and magazines, according to a new survey. But they’ve also become more skeptical of what they find online.
The third annual nationwide survey of 2,000 households found Internet users are spending more time online and that they watch less television than non-users.
Overall, Internet users are averaging 11 hours a week online, up by more than an hour from a year earlier.
About 61 percent find the Net “very” or “extremely” important as an information source. That compares with 60 percent for books and 58 percent for newspapers, within the survey’s margin for error of 3 percentage points.
Only 53 percent of users, however, believe most or all of what they read online, according to the survey by the Center for Communication Policy at UCLA.
