New AP Poll Reveals That Black and Hispanic Millennials Are Just as Tech Savvy as Their White Counterparts

According to an Associated Press poll, Black and Hispanic Millennials are just as tech savvy as their white peers.

In a survey conducted by the Media Insight Project, 1,045 young adults from the ages of 18-34 reported their tech habits. This group which included 163 African-Americans and 162 Hispanics were the focus of the poll results.

“People of color are very wired and just as adept in using technology,” said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute, which funded the study. “If you want a subject that hasn’t been covered in the mainstream, millennials have found ways to get at that information through community sharing more than traditional ways. The way they get news is heavily influenced by topic.”

The poll suggests that old trends do not apply to this new generation. Because of the increased availability of technology and devices  like smartphones, tablets, and cheap affordable laptops people with lower economic means will have access to the technological revolution.

From the poll’s results, 41 percent of Blacks compared with 29 percent of whites and 24 percent of Hispanics will get their trending news from Facebook. The numbers show that 38 percent of Hispanics compared with 33 percent of Blacks and 20 percent of whites  will go to Youtube for information and 30 percent of Hispanics compared with 45 percent of African-Americans and 19 percent of whites will go to Instagram.

These numbers show that Black people are extremely active on a variety of social media platforms.

“Streaming music, TV or movies is the most commonly cited online activity among African-Americans, while keeping up with what their friends are doing is the most commonly cited online activity among Hispanics. For white millennials, checking and sending email was most common,” reports Glynn A. Hill for the Associated Press.

This poll was created in January and February of this year and released this month.

5 Millenial Behaviors That Should be Driving Tech Innovation

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User Experiences

For any tech business to prosper, its products and services have to appeal to millennials. By 2017, the millennial generation will be the largest online audience and will have more buying power than any other generation that has come before it, including the baby boomers. Straightforward user experiences will dictate the success of websites, e-commerce stores and mobile app developers.

An Open Letter to All Blerds

Dear Friend,

We first met in elementary school. I was always curious what you were talking about, laughing raucously with the older kids. You must have seen my interest when we made eye contact across the room because you smiled and waved a hand for me to come over. A polite invitation must not have been enough, so I felt nervous as you got up and walked across the cafeteria to ask if I watched Tommy become the White Ranger. Who hadn’t, I wondered.

We were steady for years until I started to figure out romantic relationships. It was hard to juggle you and them, and they didn’t understand you that well, but those are just excuses. I fell off before Wanda said “No more mutants” and to this day I try to make up the time we lost. Our relationship has been a Deborah Cox song; not “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here,” but the duet with R.L. people forget existed. I’m an adult now, and I know the secret you never tried to keep: Nerds are the most awesome people you can keep in your life. And Blerds? If you recognized R.L. from Next and were flooded with nostalgia, and you remember the exact moment Tommy pulled out his dagger in the white costume, you understand how special we are in our tiny sliver of the Venn diagram.

Blerds have the best community on the Internet, hands down. You are to online communities what The Wire is to television: Something so amazing that you feel woefully ineffective to explain it. I haven’t dabbled in all online communities to compare – I missed the new parent community, the vegan community, the country music community, among others – but I am confident in saying geeky people of color are the most fun, supportive and socially conscious group I could ever have the pleasure of knowing. You bond over memories of Gargoyles, debate fan casting of Saga, and band together against the onslaught of aggressions constantly hurled against you. You face a constant barrage of racism, sexism and trolls, yet when the Titans attack you mount up a coalition who swarm Facebook threads and Twitter feeds and you take back Wall Maria.

I have always been years behind social media, and was especially hesitant to join anything like Twitter or Tumblr. I kept to my quiet world of Facebook in the comfort of 200 carefully selected friends. It wasn’t until 2014 that I reconnected with Whitney Syphax Walker, watched the launch of Black Nerd Problems, followed other sites in the blerdsphere, and was led to a Whole New World on an African-print magic flying carpet.

Read more from Jordan Calhoun at Blacknerdproblems.com