Huge growth of heavy internet users has implications for 2006, 2008
The New York Times has a piece on the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society’s current study of internet usage. A main point of the Times’ story appears to be that internet usage increases social isolation:
[T]he researchers said they had now gathered further evidence showing that in addition to its impact on television viewing, Internet use has lowered the amount of time people spend socializing with friends and even sleeping. According to the study, an hour of time spent using the Internet reduces face-to-face contact with friends, co-workers and family by 23.5 minutes, lowers the amount of time spent watching television by 10 minutes and shortens sleep by 8.5 minutes. The researchers acknowledged that the study data did not answer questions about whether Internet use itself strengthened or weakened social relations with one’s friends and family. “It’s a bit of a two-edged sword,” Mr. Nie said. “You can’t get a hug or a kiss or a smile over the Internet.”
This is a point of view that Mr Nie has had at least since his 2000 study of the same issues. (It seems a bit inappropriate to this reader that Mr. Nie’s ownership and management of the survey companies involved in the studies, Knowledge Networks and InterSurvey, are not disclosed in the Times piece.)
In any event, the real news of the piece is found by a longitudinal comparison of the two studies, done five years apart. In the previous study, around 4% of respondents used the internet for 3 or more hours a day. In the current survey, at a minimum, 31% of respondents were online for 3 or more hours a day — this is a 50% annual rate of growth of heavy internet users over the last five years! (In actuality, the total of heavy internet users is probably even higher than that, since to be considered an “internet user” for the purposes of the current survey, you had to answer “yes” to having used the internet the day prior to being surveyed.)
A huge growth market for politics on the internet
We direct your attention to the Pew study on the election that came out last month (and our commentary) that featured this:
The Internet continues to grow in importance as a source for election news. The proportion who cite the Internet as one of their main sources of campaign news has risen exponentially: from 3% in 1996, to 11% in 2000, and 21% today. And the number who say they got any news online during the election this year has risen from 10% in 1996, to 30% in 2000, to 41% today.
Six-in-ten voters under age 30 report using the Internet as a news source at some point during the campaign, while 40% of those under-30 voters cite it is as a main source of campaign news. By comparison, 48% of those age 30-49, 38% of those age 50-64, and just 15% of voters age 65 and older reported any use of the Internet for campaign news.
Heavy internet users have been doubling every two years of late. The use of the internet as a main political campaign news source has doubled over the last five years, and this growth rate has been weighted down by virtual non-usage of the internet by people over 65 for political news. Therefore, the growth rate of people using the internet for input into political decision-making will increase over the next election cycles, as the internet becomes, in effect, interactive TV and more, for the majority of Americans.
So here’s the question: when is the Powerline IPO?