Pew internet: (US) Gamers, Broadband, Employment information

A number of interesting reports from Pew Research Center in the last month or so (all reports are free, and the research is generally based on robust samples of people in the USA):
- Gaming and gamers (report published December 12) "About half of American adults (49%) “ever play video games on a computer, TV, game console, or portable device like a cellphone,” and 10% consider themselves to be “gamers.” ... A nearly identical share of men and women report ever playing video games (50% of men and 48% of women). However, men are more than twice as likely as women to call themselves “gamers” (15% vs. 6%). And among those ages 18 to 29, 33% of men say the term “gamer” describes them well, more than three times the proportion of young women (9%) who say the same." There are variations according to ethnicity and gender in terms of whether people game, identify as gamers and also in terms of attitudes (e.g. as to whether respondents think gaming makes people violent, as to whether gaming is a waste of time). Gamers are more likely to have positive attitides to gaming. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/12/15/gaming-and-gamers/
- Searching for work (report published November 19) "Roughly one-third of Americans have looked for a new job in the last two years, and 79% of these job seekers utilized online resources in their most recent search for employment. That is higher than the proportion who made use of close personal connections (66%) or professional contacts (63%) and more than twice the proportion who utilized employment agencies, print advertisements, or jobs fairs and other events." (if you add the figures together, that still makes various kinds of personal and professional contact more important than the intenet, though) http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/11/19/searching-for-work-in-the-digital-era/
- (US) Home broadband 2015 (report published December 21). An interesting publication, which reports that home broadband is down slightly from 2013 (67% of Americans in 2015), but the number of smartphone-only households is increasing (in some cases people cancelling broadband because they think that a smartphone answers all their needs). However, use of smartphones-only causes some problems; also "Non-broadband users now show a strong appreciation of the importance of home service in ways they did not five years ago". http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/12/21/home-broadband-2015/
Photo by Sheila Webber: old Christmas bauble bought in Prague, December 2015