Canadians the most experienced Internet consumers in the world
Hey Google - you're not so tough.
The belief that the Internet is pushing aside traditional media as a source of news and information may be mistaken, according to a new study profiling online Canadians.
The study, one of the largest and most comprehensive ever conducted on Internet users in Canada, found that those who use Google, Yahoo and other online sources to get their daily dose of news are more likely to pick up a newspaper, read a book or flip through a magazine than non-users of the Internet.
Newspapers were cited by 59 per cent of Internet users as an important source of information, compared to 50 per cent of non-users, while books were important for 55 per cent of Web surfers compared to 38 per cent of non-users.
A similar trend could be found for magazines and radio, with television being the only medium considered more important by offline Canadians.
"While Internet use has a measurable displacement effect - with some time that might have been spent watching television, listening to the radio or reading magazines and newspapers instead devoted to the Internet - our data support the general conclusion that, for most users, the Internet serves more as a supplement to traditional media than a replacement," the study concluded.
"Internet users, it would seem, are simply more media-oriented than are non-users."
The results are based on a survey of 3,014 Canadians at least 18 years old who answered questions in a telephone interview in May and June of last year. The margin of error is 1.8 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
The study is the first to come out of the Canadian Internet Project, an ongoing research initiative led by a consortium of universities and supported with provincial, federal and private-sector funding. It’s Canada’s contribution to the World Internet Project, a global research group working to compile and compare data about Internet use around the world based on standardized surveys. The project involves more than 25 countries.
Dr. Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School in Southern California, founded the World Internet Project six years ago. He said the Internet is no longer considered an emerging technology.
"We're getting to the point where most of the people who want to be online are online," he told an audience at Ryerson University, where the results of the study were released. "The fact you can call up a search engine, enter a question and get the answer in seconds means we now rely on it."
He said people now surf the Internet to kill time, rather than using it selectively for a particular purpose, such as email. Part of this change in behaviour is the embracing of high-speed Internet services that, in addition to being fast and supporting broadband applications such as video streaming and music downloading, are 'always on' and always available.
Broadband technologies have also encouraged Internet surfers to bring their own content to the Web, reversing what Cole calls a 450 years of spoon-feeding by the media.
"The audience is now posting huge amounts of content," he said, pointing to the rising popularity of online journals such as blogs or peer-to-peer file trading networks. "We’re no longer just consumers of information, but providers of information."
Among the study’s other key findings:
-Among non-users of the Internet, 1 in 3 have previously been online but decided later they didn't want to use the Internet.
-The vast majority of non-users of the Internet cited a general lack of interest in and usefulness of the Internet for not being online. Privacy, spam and social concerns were also cited. Only 7 per cent of non-users said they were offline because it's too expensive, suggesting the existence of any digital divide is not based on financial barriers.-Internet users watch an average of 3.7 fewer hours a week of television compared to non-users, and most users, particularly those who have used voice over Internet protocol services, say they have reduced their use of traditional telephone service.
-Users spend nearly twice as much time online for information (6.1 hours a week) as they do for entertainment (3.3 hours).
-Farmers, fishers and unskilled workers are less likely to be online, while business owners, office workers and professionals are most likely to surf, and more often.
-Two-thirds of online Canadian households use a high-speed connection.
-Among government services accessed online, federal services are used most often, followed by provincial and municipal ones.
-Canadians are the most experienced Internet consumers in the world, with 60 per cent of users saying they've been online for more than five years. The United States came second at 58 per cent, followed by Sweden at 55 per cent.
Project co-director André Caron, a professor at the University of Montreal who studies emerging technologies, said the biggest disappointment out of the study is that Canadians don't go on the Internet with the purpose of accessing Canadian content.
"It’s where we need to do the most work," he said.
Another concern is the 28 per cent of those surveyed who described themselves as non-users of the Internet, a group that Caron called an "invisible minority" - a group not taking part in the knowledge society.
"We had to decide what to do with these non-users," he said, pointing out that an effort is also needed to get less frequent users and those from lower income and education demographics to tap into a richer variety of online content, services and applications.
"Those people are not accessing the same information as everybody else."
posted by Netwoman @ 10:56 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home