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Young Men Online

When asked, men ages 18-34 say they would prefer to keep their Internet connection (69%) rather than their TV signal (31%) if forced to choose.

Popular activities for men this age include playing video games (60%), computer games (51%), going to bars (33%), renting DVDs (33%), and seeing a movie in a theater (20%).

Some 60% say they notice which companies advertise online, but they don't click through very often. Forty percent pay more attention to online ads that include video. Most aren't bothered - and sometimes like - site takeover ads (63%) and pre-roll video ads (58%). About one-half (47%) have purchased something in-store after seeing an online ad, and 39% purchased something online.

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Blog Use in Purchasing

Almost one-half (47%) of Americans read a blog during the past 12 months, with 14% doing so at least weekly. Fifty-two percent of blog readers say that blogs have played a critical role in moving forward with a purchase.

The most common types of purchases where consumers find blogs useful are for technology product or service information (31%), entertainment purchases (15%), games, toys and sporting goods (14%), travel (12%), automotive (11%) and health (10%).

The chart below provides additional detail on blogs' influence in consumers' purchasing process.

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Fair Trade in the U.S.

A GlobeScan study shows that despite the recession, fair trade product sales in the U.S. grew by 10% in 2008. Fair trade items are those where importers and retailers pay a premium price to workers who grow and produce goods in accordance with rigorous standards that guarantee worker rights, community empowerment and environmental sustainability.

The study also found that more than 30% of Americans are considered "ethically minded consumers," which is nearly double the global average for consumers. These individuals are defined as being very active in their communities and having high expectations of companies for economic, environmental and social performance.

The following chart shows other figures related to the strength of the U.S. fair trade market.

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Kids Want Eco-Friendly Products

Most American kids aged 8-14 (81%) say they wish companies did more to help the environment, according to Just Kid Inc. They see big companies (56%) as more responsible for protecting the environment than politicians (50%), kids (46%) or their parents (37%).

Some 64% say they would stop purchasing products from a company they found out was harming the environment. While kids are very interested in protecting endangered animals (86%), they are also concerned with keeping water clean (84%), improving air quality (83%) and protecting wilderness and wetlands (80%).

The following chart details actions that kids take to help the environment.

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Most Trusted Media

A recent survey by TNS Media Intelligence shows that friends (48%) are the most trusted news source for Americans, followed by online news (38%). The following chart provides details on other news sources.

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Who's Social Networking?

Overall, the share of adult U.S. Internet users with a profile on a social networking site has more than quadrupled since 2005: jumping from 8% to 35% today. For adults aged 18-24, the share is 75%, and for tweens, it's almost 100%.

The social networking site Facebook reached 200 million active users in April of this year. More than 100 million users log on to Facebook every day, while more than 20 million users update their status at least once per day. MySpace has 130 million members; LinkedIn shows over 40 million members, and Twitter has over 30 million members.

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Spam Hurts the Environment

The annual energy used to transmit, process and filter spam totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours, according to "The Carbon Footprint of Email Spam Report," released earlier this year by the security firm McAfee. This is equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million U.S. homes - and creates the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million cars using 2 billion gallons of gasoline.

Almost 80% of the energy waste created by spam is due to end-users deleting it from their inboxes - or searching for legitimate e-mail.

A 2009 report from Sophos shows that the U.S. is the leading spam-relaying country in the world, with 17.5% of the total. Russia is a distant second at 7.7%.

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