You are on a desert island. You have the option of an email account or Google, which do you choose? Well, that’s a no brainer. You choose email and send someone a letter so you can get off the stupid island. But what if that island was Manhattan?

Earlier this month, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released the latest statistics frequency on search engine use. In case you are curious, here is how it stacks up (click for a full-size version):

Despite where you live, apparently we all feel like we are on our own island of sorts. And believe it or not, search engine use has only recently been gaining on email. The Pew offers two explanations for the increased populatity of search engines (and let’s just ignore the absurdity of considering Google as unpopular).

First, search engines are now a feature of most websites:

One likely reason is that users can now expect to find a high-performing, site-specific
search engine on just about every content-rich website that is worth its salt.

This can most likely be attributed to the proliferation of web2.0-ish, content authoring websites like blogs, wikis, and CMSs. WordPress, Wikipedia, and Joomla all have search capabilities out of the box.

Second, and for me more surprising, was the correlation with broadband access:

Of all the demographic variables we analyzed, the presence of a home broadband connection had the strongest relationship with a user’s propensity to use a search engine on a typical day. Previous studies have shown that when a user upgrades to home broadband, she is more likely to turn to the internet first when she has a question – and now she is increasingly likely to visit a search engine to find the answer.

Looking at the graph above, I find the line up staggering. Not only is search behavior far less prevalent that I might have expected, but it comes in second to email. I know I am not a typical internet user, I certainly use Google and email daily (hourly, bi-hourly,…), but my Google search certainly gets more love than my Gmail account. I suppose I just consume more Internet media than I produce. Maybe it is an urban thing.

So folks, step up and vote: Which do you use more, search engines or email?