THE MORE TIME PEOPLE SPEND USING THE INTERNET

THE INTERNET STUDY: More Detail

What do users do on the Internet? (Click images for larger view)

We asked each of our 4000 respondents to select among a list of 17 common internet activities and tell us which they did or did not do. This is what we found:

E-mail is by far the most common Internet activity, with 90% of all Internet users claiming to be e-mailers. (Note: the corresponding table has been updated from the previous version of the press release)

For the most part, the Internet today is a giant public library with a decidedly commercial tilt. The most widespread use of the internet today is as an information search utility for products, travel, hobbies, and general information. Virtually all users interviewed responded that they engaged in one or more of these information gathering activities.

A little over a third of all Internet users report using the web to engage in entertainment such as computer games (such as online chess, role games, and the like). Thus, the current Internet is also emerging as an entertainment utility.

Chat rooms are for the young and the anonymous. While a quarter of internet users claim to have used chat rooms, this activity substantially decreases after age 25. And the chatters report that the overwhelming portion of their chat room interaction is with anonymous others whose identities remain unknown.

Consumer to Business transactional activity-- purchasing, stock trading, online auctions, and e-banking--are engaged in by much smaller fractions of Internet users, with only a quarter reporting they make purchases online and under fifteen percent doing any of the other transactional activities. Despite all of the sound and fury, business to consumer commercial online transactions are but in their earliest stages.

How many different activities do Internet users engage in?

Building from the data in chart B, we find that the average Internet user reports engaging in 7.2 different types of activities. While there is probably some double accounting due to our attempt to be comprehensive in our list activities, the average user is engaging in at least 5 distinct types of activities on the Web: a combination of different types of information searches, entertainment and games, and for one quarter, some commercial transactional activity.

Length of use correlates with amount of use.

The Internet has been around for about five years now, and the longer people have been web users the more hours and the more activities they report engaging in. While self-selection may be playing a role with early adopters, the data in Chart, along with the generational data presented here and in the press release, strongly suggest a model of social change with not only a growing number of Internet users, but with web users doing more and more things on the internet in the future.

Myth and Reality of the 'Digital Divide':

There are some demographic differences in Internet access.

21 percent of differences in Internet access can be explained by demographic factors. By far the most important factors facilitating or inhibiting Internet access are education and age, and not income - nor race/ethnicity or gender, each of which account for less than 5 percent change in rates of access and are statistically insignificant. By contrast, a college education boosts rates of Internet access by well over 40 percentage points compared to the least educated group, while people over 65 show a more than 40 percentage point drop in their rates of Internet access compared to those under 25. Age really reflects generational differences, and thus shows what to expect in the future.

There are few demographic differences in Internet use.

Only 6 percent of differences in Internet use can be explained by demographic factors: Thus, once people are connected to the Net they hardly differ in how much they use it and what they use it for - except for a drop-off after age 65, and a faint hint of a gender gap. Demographic differences in Internet use involve at most an hour and a half a week, mainly reflecting people's time budgets and work status; and they involve hardly more than half an additional Internet activity, in the latter case reflecting levels of education. Instead - and above all - Internet use increases dramatically, both in terms of amount of time and in terms of range of activities, the longer people have been connected to the Internet, and this fact will make for steady growth in the future.

The more time people spend using the Internet …

... the more they lose contact with their social environment.
This effect is noticeable even with just 2-5 Internet hours/week, and it rises substantially for those spending more that 10 hours/week, of whom up to 15 percent report a decrease in social activities. Even more striking is the fact that Internet users spend much less time of talking on the phone to friends and family: the percentage reporting a decrease exceeds 25 percent - although it is unclear to what extent this represents a shift to e-mail even in communicating with friends and family, or a technical bottleneck due to a single phone line being preempted by Internet use.
- ... the more they turn their back on the traditional media.
This effect increases proportionally with hours of Internet use: for every additional hour on the Net, people report further decreases in time spent with traditional media, reaching 65 percent for those spending more than 10 hours a week on the Net. Clearly the media are competing with the Internet for time, especially in the case of television where even with as little as two hours/week on the Net, a quarter of Internet users report decreases in TV viewing - you can't surf the web and watch TV at the same time. For newspapers, the same effect is less dramatic and may also reflect the fact that people could substitute reading the news on the web for reading the paper.
- ... the more time they spend working at home - and at the office.
Even with less than 5 hours/week of Internet use, about 15 percent of full-time or part-time workers report an increase in time spent working at home. And as their amount of Internet use rises above 5 hours/week, a growing number - up to an additional 12 percent - even report spending more time working at the office, as well as at home. For heavy Internet users with regular jobs, a substantial portion of their total Internet use is likely to take place at the office to begin with - and it seems to be keeping them there for longer hours, in addition to invading their home. There are at present no indications suggesting the beginnings of telecommuting.
- ... the less time they spend shopping in stores and commuting in traffic.
  This effect grows with the number of Internet hours/week, and as might be expected, stands out particularly clearly for people who use the web for researching product information or for actually making purchases online, thus saving trips to the store. But it does not affect time spent commuting in traffic, which decreases with the number of Internet hours for the non-working population only, whether or not they shop on the web - working Internet users drive to work just as much as before.