The Public Policy Institute of California released its annual statewide survey of Californians and Information Technology today, and the findings are once again noteworthy.

Key findings of the survey include:

• The use of mobile devices to access the Internet is accelerating—Californians are twice as likely to use mobile than they were just 3 years ago.  Californians are still most likely to connect from their desktop, but 40% now connect via a mobile device.
  
  
• The use of cell phones to go online has increased across racial and ethnic groups. Today, 57 percent of blacks (31% in 2008), 43 percent of whites (18% in 2008), 41 percent of Asians (24% in 2008), and 32 percent of Latinos (16% in 2008) say they have accessed the Internet this way.
  
  
• Across racial and ethnic groups, Latinos (55%) are the least likely to have a broadband connection (74% blacks, 76% Asians, 81% whites) or to use the Internet (70% Latinos, 85% blacks, 86% Asians, 92% whites).
• Californians are more connected than the national average:  Californians in the PPIC survey are more likely than U.S. adults in a recent Pew survey to have Internet access (76% to 68%) or a broadband connection at home (72% to 61%).
  
  
• A  majority of Californians say people without broadband connections are at a major (62%) or minor (20%) disadvantage when it comes to finding information about job opportunities or gaining new career skills. Across racial and ethnic groups, blacks (71%) and Latinos (68%) are more likely to say that people without high-speed Internet access at home are at a disadvantage (62% Asians, 57% whites). Californians 18 to 34 years old (70%) are far more likely than those over age 55 (49%) to hold this view.

"The growing use of cell phones for accessing the Internet is changing the way that Californians relate to work, and this trend also has promise for reducing the digital divide,” says Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO.

You can download the full report from the PPIC Web site.