Public starting to sour on the Internet

According to a new Rasmussen poll, Americans are becoming less enthused about the Internet’s influence on American culture, politics and journalism.

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 31 percent say the Internet’s impact on American culture overall has been good for the country, down from 37 percent in April. Twenty-nine percent think the Internet’s impact on American culture has been bad for the nation, while 30 percent say neither. 

The poll comes on the heels of a survey released last month that found more than 50 percent of Internet users, suffering from social media overload, have either taken or have considered taking a "vacation" from social networking.
Irrelevant updates and a lack of time are the top reasons people desire a break from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social networks.
The study by MyLife.com found that online users are becoming overwhelmed by the increasing number of social networks and email accounts they manage.

The survey of more than 2,000 adults ages 18 and older found more than 40 percent manage multiple social networking profiles, and more than half belong to more social networks or visit their networks more frequently than they did two years ago. 

At the same, a second new Rasmussen poll found that 24 percent of Americans still buy a print copy of their local paper daily or nearly every day.

That number has been steadily falling for years, of course, but the survey found less confidence that online and other news sources can fill the void left by vanishing traditional papers.

Fifty-eight percent of those polled, when given the choice, prefer to read a printed version of a newspaper over the online version, according to this national survey. Twenty-nine percent prefer the online versions of papers, while 12 percent more are undecided.