This is part of a series of reports by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project exploring how different generations use technology (previous reports: 2010, 2009, 2006). All the generation labels used in these reports, with the exceptions of “Younger Boomers” and “Older Boomers,” are the names conventionalized by William Strauss and Neil Howe in their book, Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069 (Perennial, 1992). The Pew Internet Project’s “Generations” reports make the distinction between Younger Boomers and Older Boomers because enough research has been done to suggest that the two decades of Baby Boomers are different enough to merit being divided into distinct generational groups.

The Pew Research Center recently published a series of reports that more closely examined the values, attitudes and experiences of the Millennial generation.¹ These reports are available in full at pewresearch.org/millennials. Many of these reports also compare this younger generation to older cohorts.

The primary adult data in this report come from a Pew Internet Project survey conducted from August 9-September 13, 2010, with some data from a survey conducted April 29 to May 30, 2010. For more information about these surveys, please see the Methodology section at the end of this report.