URBAN LIFE WAVE 03 2009 HIGHLIGHTS

The government

Conservatives are maintaining their lead at the expense of Labour, who are rapidly losing support. A third of you are planning on voting Conservative in the next general election, versus only 14% for Labour. Even the Green party are fast on Labour's heels, sitting on 8% of your intended votes (grown from 5% only a year ago). In fact, over half (53%) of you feel that Gordon Brown should actually step down from this role and two thirds of you would like the next general election to be held in the next 6 months.

Reality TV

Nearly half of you would like to see another series of 'The Apprentice'. Whilst this was the programme most of you wanted another series of, Big Brother was the least desired.

TV laptop couple 58% of you watch TV online, and those who do, watch more than 3 hours per week on average. In fact, 1 in 10 of you who watch TV online say you now do your 'main' TV viewing online. Astonishingly, 95% of you claim to have used BBC iPlayer and 56% have used 4od. HD TV is getting more popular too, with 14% of you having a HD TV service subscription, versus only 4% this time last year. Online news content Some newspaper websites are considering charging for viewing the content on their website. It seems you're just not down with this idea however, as 84% told us you would be unlikely to continue using these sites if you had to pay. Digital Urban Life 82% of you access the internet both at home and at work and most commonly you access the internet through a wireless router; though 1 in 7 surf on your mobile/Blackberry. The internet is a big helping hand when organising nights out too. 67% say the internet helps you make the most of what your town/city has to offer, 7 in 10 have used it in the past month to locate a going-out venue on a mapping service such as 'Streetmap', and half have used social networking sites in the past month to make social arrangements with friends. Facebook A whopping 83% of you are facebook members, and 1 in 3 of you facebook users log on multiple times throughout the day! 7% are on dating sites and only 9% are not registered with any social networking sites at all. Few feel that the rise in social networking is having an isolating effect however, with most agreeing that social networking sites help you keep in touch with the people you want to stay in contact with. But could we all be a bunch of facebook stalkers? Well not quite, although women are much more likely than men to fess up to spying on others (36% versus 21% for men)

Is online social media bringing us closer together or further apart?

Of those of you who gave an opinion, most (39%) agreed with the statement 'Social media is bringing us closer together', though 15% felt 'Social media is driving us further apart' and the rest (46%) were somewhere in the middle.

Bringing us closer together:

"Easier to make the time to touch base and say hi - less disruptive than phone calls"

"In an instant we can find out what friends are up to"

"It is a great way to keep in touch with friends that you lose touch with, keep up with what people are doing, when the last thing you want to do when you get home from work is call friends to chat. It is so convenient!"

"As long as it doesn't take over a person's life, it can put people in touch with old friends. I also get invited to a lot of events that I could possibly miss out on without facebook."

"I can connect to multiple friends this way and share my pictures and news quickly. My friend is in India for the year and social networking helps us to keep in touch with him on his travels."

"Not only is this a 'one-stop-shop' to organise nights out and other social occasions, but you can then relive the experience together making comments on photos that you have viewed etc."

"Easy to make new friends online who then become off-line friends."

"Met my wife online."

"People are tending to move around whether it is the UK or abroad and social networking allows you to stay in touch."

Driving us further apart:

"I find it repulsive that people publish every boring and personal thing about their lives. People should interact directly in person not cyber chat or even talk incessantly on the phone."

"People call each other less and meet even less often, we are judging peoples responses by how they are wording stuff not by their physical expressions or the sounds of the voice, it's making it very impersonal and statements can be misinterpreted."

"People are unable to communicate properly anymore or form proper sentences."

"Friends are real flesh and blood people that are there for you, not a pointless post from someone you barely know telling you mundane bullxxxx about their boring life.... It's really sad when people boast about how many thousands of 'friends' they have on facebook... no they don't, they're not real!"

"I have a friend who goes on facebook every night now, even cancelling meet ups with friends because of this!"

"Social networking is total rubbish, my fiancee has a friend on facebook who she talks to online all the time, she walked past her in the street the other day and they never spoke a word to each other or even acknowledged each other, what a crazy situation!!!"

Mixed response:

"You get in contact with people you haven't seen for years and it's interesting to see how people's lives have turned out. But it's also quite false - if you really wanted to be friends with these people, why didn't you stay in contact after school/college/uni?"

"Love the fact that I can chat on line and see photos from friends who are overseas - or even just live at the other end of the UK. For close friends - why not just pick up the phone?"

"It is handy to catch up with a diverse group of friends, finding out what they have been up to and being able to wish people a 'Happy Birthday' when otherwise you might forget. However, I am not interested in reading every trivial thing that some people believe they have to update us on."