Bryndwr - Internet Use Project

Researcher John Stephen Veitch

Field dates 28 May, to 20 June, 2009

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The original Bryndwr Research work was done in 2003. This research confirms my earlier findings that people are making very little use of the Internet. The promised Super-Highway of Knowledge and Information isn't used.

People seem to be very practical about their use of the Internet. They use the Internet to assist the them in the life they are currently living. The idea that the nation, the city, the community, or any individual could be transformed by access to information isn't appreciated. Fourteen years ago, many of us who lived in far off places like New Zealand or Norway or Iceland, were driven to be "connected" to the world to get closer to the "centre" of thinking and to the place "where the action is". I see little evidence of that drive in this community.

During this research, I've learned so much, and I'd like to start again with a different set of questions. That can't be done of course. These results raise many more questions. Contrary to good research technique, the last 25% of respondents were asked slightly different questions regarding their email. This extra detail tries to explore in more detail what types of email people are actually getting.

I think that many people get jokes and pretty pictures from friends as a substantial part of their mail. I suspect that many people get more announcement list email than they expect. Email is not like posted letters, or the junk mail in your letter box. Email has a different function in our lives. It's a working tool.

135 households - "high Internet users" - Age and Gender of Respondents - By Random Sets

Nil = No Internet in the home. NR = No Reply. REF = Refusal.

This table shows the original selection of individuals in the study.

90 Interviews done. There are 3 "No Replies". There are 15 Refusals.

In market research the quality of the data is very strongly influenced by the refusal rate. I'm pleased to report a refusal rate is 14.3%. (Which is excellent. Refusal rates of 30+ are common in the industry.) One reason for the high participation rate is the unusual criteria for the chosen respondent. The survey asked the person in each household who was most active on the Internet to be the participant. This had two effects: often the participant was very willing and helpful, and the data is skewed to record the most active people not a randomly selected sample.

78% of households in this survey are Internet connected. Of those, 81% were on broad-band. This is a distinctly middle class area, of well educated people who you would expect to be substantial users of the Internet.

100 "high user" householders - Age and Gender of 100 Respondents

Here the same data is re-organised to show the 100 chosen participants in age order.

This table tells you about the age and gender of the most active Internet user in each house. In age order.

The median person was 24 when the Internet became widely available. In our sample there is a cluster of heavy users (7 people) aged between 50 and 40. (As a side issue the researcher is also a heavy user, and at 67, seems to be outside this framework.) There were 4 more heavy users 36, 35, 32 and 31 with no heavy users at a younger age. That information might destroy some commonly held assumptions.

100 "high user" householders - How many email accounts do you use?

58.8% = one
23.5% = two
13% = three
5% = four

Only 10 people reported the spam was a problem. You can see why when you understand that the mean number of email's is FOUR a day. Some people were not very sure what "spam" was. That's a great contrast to my own experience as an early adopter and heavy user of the Internet. Good tools to control spam were not a feature of the early Internet.

People who get lots of mail need at least 2 and probably 3 accounts. All of the people in the top percentile had at least two, more likely three. Think separation: private mail; business mail; and social network mail, list mail and newsletters.

100 "high user" householders - Email's Received per Week

Study the table below and draw your own conclusions.

Most households are subscribed to several announcement only lists. Very few are subscribed to any discussion lists.

If you want a single measure of Internet activity, email flow is the obvious measure.

100 "high user" householders - Email's Written per Week

A rather surprising result was that some people wrote replies to almost all their email. 3-5 a week.

All of the people in the top percentile were getting more than 140 letters a week and writing more than 35 letters a week.

100 "high user" householders - Subscription to Announcement Lists

This table is likely to seriously under count the lists subscribed to. Many respondents were unsure what counted as a "list".

Notice that women are willing subscribers to announcement lists. Those lists are often weekly or monthly commercial offers from companies they regularly buy from. High end users subscribe to a different sort of announcement list, lists of a professional nature that share company or community of practice news.

100 "high user" householders - Membership of Discussion Lists

Eleven of respondents were members of discussion lists. six on one list each, the other 5 on multiple lists. Half of these lists were run by clubs or NGO groups and were interest based. (health, environmental or community action). The other lists were professional groups, communities of practice, or in-house corporate lists.

For early users of the Internet the ability to join discussion lists was a key benefit of Internet use. The wild west of usenet became unusable once undisciplined people with commercial objectives began the flood the forums with unwanted messages. Listservs were offered by universities, research groups and many non-government organisations. Membership was free, but it needed to be approved, and the discussion was moderated. In the days before social networks Yahoo Groups was a leading application making discussion lists available to everyone. Lack of knowledge or interest in discussion lists is concerning to me. I do understand that with the growth of social networks we might expect the importance of lists to decline.

So is there any evidence that people are using social networks for "information"? None. The social network with the best forums and with a host of experienced and helpful users, is Ryze. But Ryze languishes from lack of active users. None of the many Yahoo Lists I'm a member of seem to function any more. Opportunity to actively use Web 2.0 tools goes begging.

For those who say lists are "old stuff" there are only 3 members of twitter, and none of Friendfeed.

100 "high user" householders - Video Watching - Monthly

For me this was a surprising result. I assumed that watching short videos was a everyday activity for everyone. Seven of the top percentile were also heavy video users, so video use is not confined to young people.

100 "high user" householders - Radio Listening

Less than 10% of respondents reported listening to the radio online. Very few listened to any music online, except to choose songs for downloading.

Three people reported listening to online radio every day. New Zealand Radio stations provide live streaming, and podcasts of previous programme's which are available for several weeks. The low use of these excellent services is disappointing.

100 "high user" householders - Downloading

This question was too broad and the data isn't very useful. 50% of people reported downloading files. Main types: Software, 12 people: Music, 15 people: Videos, 9 people and PDF's, 13 people. Some people were unsure what we meant by the term "downloading".

100 "high user" householders - Online News Sources

Once again the question was too broad to quantify what people are doing.

44% reported not using online newspapers or magazines at all. Perhaps the surprising thing is the variety of sources reported.

For me a big surprise and disappointment was the small number of people who read blogs. There was also a specific question about the use of RSS News Readers, which got 100% negative replies.

100 "high user" householders - Operating Printers

25% of households reported that their printers were not capable of operating at the moment.

People are very reluctant to print unless they have to do so. That may be because most of them have inkjet printers with a relatively high cost per printed page. Heavy users print quite a lot, but they do it at work usually.

100 "high user" householders - Email and Internet Pages Printed - Weekly

People who downloaded PDF's report that sometimes it's necessary to print a large document. Often the file is taken to work an printed there.

100 "high user" householders - Social Network Memberships

Many people assume from the news media that strong membership of online social networks is something that everyone has developed. This data shows an entirely different pattern. +50% of respondents were NOT in any online social network.

Only 14 people reported membership of more than one social network.

Social Networking is the key to making the Internet USEFUL to ordinary people, in contrast to scholars and researchers. Joining groups is a distinguishing behaviour many people have not understood. Active participation in group discussions increases your knowledge, helps to establish your own point of view, and over time increases your confidence and your ability to accept leadership roles.

Facebook is used for family connection. Not a single person mentioned any business purpose in using Facebook. Many grandparents are on Facebook in response to requests from their adult grandchildren.

There are 100's of these networks. Five networks that are not listed above were mentioned.

Only 20% of members reported going to their social network on a daily basis. Another 20% visited at least once a week. That leaves 60% who are not really involved at all. The Internet would quickly become more valuable to people, if more of them had the confidence and skills to engage in social networks. Whatever you need to learn, whatever problem you may have, you can always get help from people in online social networks. But if you never have the courage to join and participate, you can't access those benefits.

LinkedIn is the world's premier business focused social network with more than 40 million members. That only three people are members is for me a rather shocking statistic. None of those people are well connected, which shows in my view, a surprising lack of knowledge and understanding.

Bebo was once a network of choice for high school students. Today it's been almost entirely replaced by Facebook. Online social networks are only 7 years old. They are still in development. The future success of LinkedIn and Facebook is continually under attack by new and improved networks.

100 "high user" householders - Search for yourself on Google - How many references to yourself?

Many people seemed surprised at this suggestion. People had trouble reporting the result of this search. The results should not be given too much credibility. I suspect the numbers are under-reported. All of the high end users were easily found this way.

100 "high user" householders - Use of Instant Messaging

Only 20% of respondents reported using instant messages. Ten people do so every day.

100 "high user" householders - Online Publishing by Yourself?

The distinction between the Internet and television is that Television is a broadcast medium, while the Internet allows people to be responsive, and to self publish. Given the ease of online publishing, the surprising thing was the lack of awareness of online publishing possibilities.

Only one person reported having a blog, but he wasn't committed to it. Three people have working business web sites, but they are all unhappy about them. Several others are "thinking about building a web site" but it's one of those jobs that never gets done.

Three reported publishing in Facebook. (There are probably others who have done this too, but not thought of it as "publishing".) One person reported sharing business documents on a site called "Drop Box" and another is using "SkyDrive". Nobody reported using Flickr, Picasa or Photobucket.

One respondent reported video of a band he has formed being uploaded to YouTube. Another had 30 videos on YouTube after a project he did with a friend.

The failure of people to use Web 2.0 technology to self publish is shocking to me. The secret to building personal and community knowledge lies in giving people the skills and the confidence to publish their own views online. It seems a small thing, but personal engagement, doing something, as Prof. Graham Nuthall would say. makes learning effective. If you choose to be silent, if you choose not to "do something", that engagement cannot be activated.

100 "high user" householders - Online Shopping

20% of respondents report never having purchased anything online. 80% participation in online buying is a massive change since I last tried to measure this 6 years ago.

Once again the subject was too broad to collect good information. The following table is only indicative of what people are buying online.

100 "high user" householders - Use of "Trade Me" - Purchases over 6 months

"Trade Me" is the New Zealand equivalent of E-Bay. 50% of respondents have never purchased or sold on Trade Me. "Looking on Trade Me" is a popular activity 10% of people doing so more than twice a week. But the amount of trading is relatively small.

Buying is much more common than selling, so this table reports buying activity over 6 months. Only 3 of the top percentile are active on Trade Me.

100 "high user" householders - Skype Calls Made - Monthly

I'm surprised that only 33 people use Skype. The median for users of Skype is 4 calls a week. The median person is not a Skype user.

100 "high user" householders - Use of Internet Banking - Weekly Use

Internet banking is one of the most popular online activities. Only 24% of respondents were not users.

Eight members of the top percentile also used online banking at least daily.

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Copyright John Stephen Veitch, June 2009