December 2015

Congress should stop short-changing America regarding our airwaves

[Commentary] As Congressional negotiators were nearing agreement in Nov on a massive budget deal, they once again looked behind the couch and between the cushions to find any loose revenue to pay for the deal. And once again, they turned to their favorite piggybank: auctioning our nation’s airwaves.

From a fiscal perspective, this makes sense and always receives strong bipartisan support. But for all the potential benefits, Congress shortchanges the country when it treats these auctions as only an accounting gimmick. Because our airwaves are a critical national resource that does much more than fill in gaps on our balance sheets. Congress overlooks the benefits of wireless technology when it is running from one budget crisis to the next. Instead, it gets stuck believing that our airwaves are only as a neat trick to get out of the next fiscal fiasco. In the end, when Congress looks to budget forecasts rather than evaluate what’s good for the country, the numbers will never add up. And when it comes to valuable national resources like spectrum, Washington needs to stop staring down at the accounting ledger. We should fix our gaze at the future and find a way to lead.

[Rep Pallone (D-NJ) is the Ranking Member on the House Commerce Committee]

One-fifth of Americans report going online ‘almost constantly’

As smartphones and other mobile devices have become more widespread, some 21 percent of Americans now report that they go online “almost constantly,” according to a Pew Research Center survey. Overall, 73 percent of Americans go online on a daily basis. Along with the 21 percent who go online almost constantly, 42 percent go online several times a day and 10 percent go online about once a day. Some 13 percent go online several times a week or less often. And in this survey, 13 percent of adults say they do not use the Internet at all.

Younger adults are in the vanguard of the constantly connected: Fully 36 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds go online almost constantly and 50 percent go online multiple times per day. By comparison, just 6 percent of those 65 and older go online almost constantly (and just 24 percent go online multiple times per day).

US Presidential Election most popular topic on Facebook

The US presidential election was the most talked about topic globally and in the United States on Facebook in 2015, the social network site announced on Dec 9. Internationally, the most talked about topics on the site after the election were, in order, the terrorist attacks in Paris, the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis, the earthquakes in Nepal, the Greek debt crisis, marriage equality, the fight against the Islamic State, the Charlie Hebdo attack, the Baltimore protests and the shooting and Confederate flag debate in Charleston (SC). In the United States, the most talk about topics after the election were, in order, marriage equality, the Charleston shooting and debate over the Confederate flag, the new Star Wars movie, the Baltimore (MD) protests, Planned Parenthood, the Super Bowl, the terrorist attacks in Paris, the fight against ISIL and the earthquake in Nepal.

President Barack Obama was the most talked about politician on Facebook across the world, followed by Donald Trump, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Hillary Clinton, Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT), former Brazilian President Luíz Inácio da Silva, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.