Grounding Digital Information Trends

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project provides data on the rise of mobile internet, the increasing popularity of handheld devices such as cell phones, tablet computers and e-readers, the emergence of social media, and the move towards augmented realities that can help us identify how those trends are shaping the way content-oriented organizations like museums interact with their audiences now and will need to interact in the future.  Because these technologies, and others, are revolutionizing how audiences consume information, and are reshaping the public’s expectations about information access and immersion, concrete knowledge of their penetration and the speed at which they are being adopted is crucial to shaping responsible institutional responses.