Internet Usage For USA

Published: Monday, October 31, 2005 Online-Casinos.com

INTERNET USAGE FOR USA

Better late than never....and still interesting

We're not sure why there should be such a long delay in these things, but the US Census Bureau has just released statistics on US Internet use that, whilst relevant to 2003 are still informative.

Mass data gathered by the Bureau in 2003 shows that 55 percent of Americans are connected from home, while wealthier, more educated families are most likely of all to use the internet. For adults, 83.5 percent of women 18 or older used computers in 2003 - more than 2 percent over men.

The Census reported that in 2003, 70 million U.S. households (62 percent) had one or more computers and that 55 percent of households had Internet access, more than triple the number of households with Net access in 1997 (18 percent).

"Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2003," reported that the Internet has become a major venue for the dissemination of news with the proportion of adults who used the Internet to find information on 'news, weather, or sports' increasing from 7 percent to 40 percent between 1997 and 2003.

The report also showed that usage of the Internet for e-commerce has grown to the point where the Net is 'an integral part of the economy.' According to the Census, in 2003 nearly half (47 percent) of adults used the Internet to find information on products or services. About one-third (32 percent) actually purchased a product or service online, compared with only 2 percent of adults who shopped online in 1997.

Seniors, African-Americans and Hispanics have had a lower computer-adoption rate compared to whites. For instance, of households over 65 years old, only 35 percent have PCs, while 45 percent of households with an African-American or Hispanic householder have a computer. Of the 20 million householders who stated they were not interested in the Internet, over 60 percent (12.7 million) were aged 55 and older.

In a measure of how interpersonal communications are changing, more than half of adults (55 percent) used e-mail or instant messaging in 2003, up from the only 12 percent who did so in 1997.

Home net use was highest in the states of Alaska, New Hampshire and Colorado, whilst Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana were bottom of the table.

The figures also revealed that computer ownership and 'Net use seem to go hand-in-hand. The percentage of computer owning homes, 62 percent, was only slightly ahead of home Web use.

Education, income and school age children were all big factors in determining whether the internet was in use in a home. In homes where incomes topped $100,000 (GBP 56,000) computer ownership was found to be 95 percent and 92 percent were online. Among families with incomes below $25,000, 41 percent had PCs and 31 percent had Internet access.

Americans who did not graduate from high school were the least likely group to use the 'Net.

More current European statistics from NetRatings-Nielsen provide an interesting parallel. The survey companys mid-October report showed that almost three-quarters of British Netsurfers (73 percent) now access the Internet from home using broadband compared to 46 percent this time last year -- a 'phenomenal growth' of 59 percent. Broadband users spend twice as long on their computers and view 3.5 times as many Web pages each month as narrowband users.

Nielsen European Internet Analyst Alex Burmaster said, "Broadband is not only good news for surfers -- providing them with more efficient Internet access -- but great news for Web site owners. Broadband users generally spend twice as long on their PC`s, visit twice as many sites, view three and a half times more pages and download more multimedia content than narrowband users."