research: log on, tune off?

Today I've come across a new piece of research on the relation between time spent online, news browsing and offline political activism. Some highlights from the Maxwell Poll on Civic Engagement and Inequality:

Occasional use of the Internet to gather news, as opposed to frequent use or no use at all, is associated with higher levels of political activity.

This relation holds up across a variety of political activities, including contacting public officials (by any means), attending political events, contributing money, working in political campaigns, and even voting.

Occasional Internet users consistently reported the highest levels of participation; frequent users usually reported the second-highest levels; non-users usually reported the lowest levels.

A statistical analysis of all these factors considered together indicates that the association between participation and categories of Internet use holds up, controlling for age and gender. In fact, the association becomes even stronger when controlling for age. Controlling for age, for example, an occasional Internet user is 3.3 times more likely to report having attended a political event relative to someone who never uses the Internet, while a frequent Internet user is 2.1 times more likely.

Read the full article from Grant Reeher to know more. Decide for yourself regarding modelling, significance and variables included. Intriguing, as it both corroborates and challenges some of the research we have conducted.