A-Ha...I'm Right

As a teacher of Spanish, I'm always interested to see in print what I personally feel is happening to the Hispanic population. Now after browsing through the Pew Survey Libraries, I'm pleased that what I thought was happening really is occurring...Hispanic Internet usage is growing. Latino adults are increasing their use of the Internet faster than other ethnic groups, according to a new survey from the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Latinos who were born in the U.S. were much more likely to go online than those born outside the U.S. This gap persisted even after accounting for differences in education levels, household income and English proficiency, the report said. This makes perfect sense as those born in the U.S. are accostomed to "everyone" having computer access. In our school, we have many Hispanic families who have immigrated from Mexico. These families are not used to having readily available computer access. Cell phones and texting are totally different as all Hispanic students have cell phones. While Hispanic use is increasing, much of the use is from the computer at the local Hispanic store which is used by many Hispanics who don't have their own computer or Internet access.

According to vivirlatina.com, there are some 20 million Latinos online and that number is growing fast. Latinos as a user group are growing at a rate of close to 50% faster than the general population. I knew it!!!!!