People have a range of options when it comes to seeking information and advice about their personal economic circumstances and how to change them. We asked everyone in our survey about the places they had gotten information and advice in the past 12 months about their financial or job situation.

For the general population – internet users and non-users alike – we found that traditional media outlets were the most important resources. Printed news media, television, and radio were at the top of the list, ahead of the internet, friends and family members, and professionals. At the same time, we found that for the 79% of Americans who are online, the internet was an equally important source to traditional media and for the 63% of Americans who have high-speed broadband connections at home, the internet was the topmost source. That also holds true for the 54% of Americans who connect to the internet through wireless links.

It was notable that people did not seem to use the internet as a substitute for other kinds of information and personal encounters. The segment of the online economic user cohort that used the internet at least daily to get financial and personal economic information was just as likely as those who used the internet less to cite the newspapers/magazines, family/friends, and professionals as sources of information. Heavier uses among the economic user cohort were somewhat more likely than lighter users to cite the internet than radio and television as a primary resource.

The internet was more likely to be cited as a key source by men, younger adults and upscale Americans than by other groups. At the same time, there were shifting patterns among different age cohorts and socio-economic groups.

Those who have been seriously hurt by the recession in their job situation or their investments are considerably more likely to have sought information from several kinds of sources compared with those who have not been hurt. They are more likely than those who have been less severely affected to have used printed material (51% vs. 39%), the internet (44% vs. 31%), and financial professionals (31% vs. 18%). Indeed 27% of those who have not been seriously hurt by the recession have consulted none of the sources that we queried in our survey.