Source: eMarketer
In March 2015 polling by GfK for Northwestern University, 25% of US teen internet users said they obtained “a lot” of health information via the internet. While this trailed human sources including No. 1 parents (55%), school health classes (32%) and doctors and nurses (29%), it was more popular than all other media types included—books, TV news, radio and newspaper and magazine articles.
When looking to the internet for information, teens relied heavily on search. Among respondents who searched for health info digitally, 58% cited Google as a way of finding websites to conduct research, and an additional 14% relied on other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing. Browsing, social networks and ads barely came into the picture.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
