Research

Digitunity recently released its National Computer Ownership Index, a new benchmark tracking computer ownership across the United States using American Community Survey data. The Index finds that 32.9 million people in the U.S. lack access to a large-screen computer, including 25.8 million who rely exclusively on smartphones. While overall computer access has improved since 2016, the findings highlight persistent gaps in access to the devices needed for employment, education, healthcare, and other essential activities.

On October 8, the Schools, Health and Libraries Coalition released a new study, conducted by the Brattle Group, on the economic impact of the E-Rate program. Brattle finds that removing roughly $2.6 billion in annual E-Rate support would reduce annual real GDP by about $4.2 billion, which translates to about $1.60 in lost economic activity for every $1 of E-Rate support removed. The report comes as the Federal Communications Commission conducts “the most comprehensive review of the E-Rate program in more than a decade.”

Last week I finished a hundred-page empirical report on four federal and two state broadband subsidy programs. It found that the programs mostly paid for service that was coming anyway, and that the ones with credible comparison groups bought a year or so of earlier service at a few thousand dollars per location per year. A project like that would once have taken me a year with a research assistant.

At the Science: A New Golden Age Summit, the Trump Administration launched the most ambitious set of science initiatives in decades, representing over $6 billion in investments across the Federal Government, industry, academia, and philanthropy to usher in a New Golden Age of Science. America’s largest Federal research agencies and partners across the science ecosystem launched whole-of-nation efforts to position the United States to lead in a new era of scientific discovery.

Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program projects will deploy 271,782 miles of buried fiber, 57.5 percent of all BEAD fiber miles. Before burying that fiber, internet service providers will have to make sure they do not disrupt other infrastructure that might already be in the ground. To do this, ISPs will have to navigate the utility locate process, which hinges on owners of that infrastructure—typically electric, water, and gas utilities; municipalities; and other state or local entities—knowing where their lines are buried and accurately marking them.

U.S. fiber broadband deployment is accelerating, and CostQuest’s newest fiber focus report offers a forward-looking view of where fiber coverage is expanding, who is building it, and how federal funding is reshaping the competitive map. Fiber is now serving 58.7 percent more U.S. homes and businesses than it did four years ago, with more than 26.6 million Broadband Serviceable Locations gaining fiber access since Version 1 of the Fabric, including 6 percent growth in just the past six months.

On August 18, 2026, OpenAI announced ChatGPT for Teens, promising "stronger built-in safety protections," including parental notifications for dangerous chats, a Study mode that can be controlled by parents, and reduced "friend"-like behavior. We tested more than 4,000 prompts before and after the Teen mode launch and rated ChatGPT an Unacceptable Risk for all children under 18. We call on OpenAI to pause marketing the product and to keep teens off of ChatGPT until it can offer a safe, developmentally appropriate experience.

While the Internet has become essential infrastructure for modern life, online linguistic diversity remains limited, with only about ten languages accounting for most content despite more than 7,000 languages spoken worldwide. As artificial intelligence accelerates the pace of digital interaction, this concentration threatens to deepen linguistic homogenization at an unprecedented scale, quietly excluding billions of people from the opportunities the Internet provides.

As social media platforms have become an important part of the information environment around the world, the view that social media is harming democracy has become more common. A new 37-nation Pew Research Center survey finds that in most countries where trend data is available, the share of the public who believes social media is bad for democracy has increased significantly from 2022 or 2023 to now. Views about social media’s impact are particularly negative in the United States, where 64% of adults say it is bad for democracy.

The U.S. fiber broadband market is in the midst of a massive “land grab,” mirroring the consolidation seen in the early days of wireless and cable. This race is driven by the reality that most U.S. cities can only sustainably support one or two fiber providers—and that fiber is now viewed as a critical component of future telecommunications earnings and revenue growth, not to mention a pathway for advanced AI services. But how to assess the current state of the U.S. fiber marketplace? An analysis of Ookla Speedtest data from almost 1,700 fixed internet providers in the U.S.