Americans are continuing to rely more and more on online interaction as they seek out information and services from the government, according to the latest results of the Pew Internet and American Life Project surveys.
"Government website visitors are also generally successful in solving their problems once they reach their online destination. Half of government website visitors said that they accomplished everything they set out to do in their last government website interaction, and an additional 28 percent were able to do most of what they wanted to do. Just 5 percent said that their most recent government website interaction was completely unsuccessful," it said.
In addition, online users tend to not be exclusive to that channel, but commonly mix such contacts through channels including phone calls, personal contacts and letters.
Some other key findings of the study:
* High-income and well-educated internet users are much more likely than those with lower levels of income and education to interact with government using online channels.
* About two-fifths of online adults go online to access data and information about government such as the text of legislation or information from sites such as data.gov, recovery.gov or usaspending.gov.
* About a third of online adults use online platforms such as blogs, social networking sites, email, online video or text messaging to get government information.
* About a quarter of online adults participate in online debates of government policies or issues, with much of this discussion occurring outside of official government channels.
