Abigail Geiger

In June 2013, news organizations broke stories about federal government surveillance of phone calls and electronic communications of US and foreign citizens, based on classified documents leaked by then-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Here are some key findings about Americans’ views of government information-gathering and surveillance, drawn from Pew Research Center surveys since the NSA revelations:

Every year, we publish a collection of facts about the important events, issues and trends we documented in our wide-ranging research over the past 12 months. In 2016, Pew Research Center examined an array of topics in America – from immigration to the growing divide between Republicans and Democrats – as well as many from around the globe. Here are 16 of our most striking findings.

13) Americans’ pathways to news are changing, and mobile news is on the rise. Almost four-in-ten Americans (38%) often get news online today, behind only television (57%); radio (25%) and print newspapers (20%) trail both. Within the digital realm, mobile news consumption is rising rapidly: The proportion of Americans who ever get news on a mobile device has gone up from 54% in 2013 to 72% today. And among people who get news on both mobile and desktop, 56% prefer mobile.

14) Facebook is by far the most popular social media platform among Americans. Today, about eight-in-ten online Americans (79%) use Facebook, more than double the share that uses Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or LinkedIn. About three-quarters (76%) of Americans who use Facebook now report that they visit the site on a daily basis – up from 70% in 2015.