Digital Tools Help Neighbors and Businesses Stay Engaged in Community Happenings

Anyone who has ever faced the prospect of a school snow day - and we had a lot of those in the nation's capital last winter - know how important it is to be informed. A great way to do it is by signing up for local e-mail alerts. I use them all the
time for our local school system. I also find out about local business happenings through a neighborhood list serve.

It's also a great reporting tool for me, and in turn could be a great resource for small businesses that need to know what their community is talking about or want to promote a special event. I wasn't too miffed to get a notice in a list serve recently announcing free ice cream samples for a week at my local candy cafe.

I recently wrote a profile of a new community pharmacy for a local business magazine. I posted a message on the local parents list serve to ask if any of the pharmacy's customers would be willing to talk about their experiences there. I was inundated with responses from supporters of the business.

A new study from Pew shows that Americans use a range of approaches to stay informed about the goings-on in their communities, and internet tools are gaining ground.

Face-to-face encounters and phone calls remain the most frequent methods of interaction with neighbors, the report found, but it also shows some important emerging trends.

• 22% of all adults (representing 28% of internet users) signed up to receive alerts about local issues (such as traffic, school events, weather warnings or crime alerts) via email or text messaging;
• 20% of all adults (27% of internet users) used digital tools to talk to their neighbors and keep informed about community issues;
• 46% of Americans talked face-to-face with neighbors about community issues;
• 21% discussed community issues over the telephone;
• 11% read a blog dealing with community issues;
• 9% exchanged emails with neighbors about community issues and 5% say they belong to a community e-mail listserv;
• 4% communicated with neighbors by text messaging on cell phones;
• 4% joined a social network site group connected to community issues; and
• 2% followed neighbors using Twitter.

Additionally, 22% of adult Americans have signed up to receive alerts about community issues via text or e-mail. This includes anyone who has signed up for alerts about one or more of the following issues:

• School events, such as school closings (13% of all adults have signed up for such alerts)
• Warnings about bad weather (11%)
• Crime in one’s neighborhood (5%)
• Traffic congestion or road closings (4%)