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by Humphrey Taylor

The nation’s online population remains stable showing only a slight apparent increase over the last six months after a pause which coincided with the bursting of the dot.com bubble. According to the latest data from The Harris Poll^®, fully two-thirds (66%) of all adults are now online. This includes more than half (55%) of all adults who access the Internet from home, almost a third (30%) who access it from work, and almost one in five adults who go online from a school, library, cyber cafe or other location. Of course, some people are online from two or more places.

These numbers show rates of Internet penetration have remained fairly stable, with a non-significant apparent increase from 64% to 66% in Internet penetration (for those online at any location) since last fall. Those online from any location are up from 64% to 66%; those online from home are up from 52% to 55%; those online at work are up from 28% to 30%, and those online at another location are unchanged at 19%.

These are the results of a nationwide Harris Interactive^SM survey conducted by telephone with a sample of 2,038 adults in February and March of this year. The 66% of adults now online comprise 137 million, up from 127 million last fall.

This new growth in the Internet population comes after a six-month period, from spring 2001 until fall 2001 when there was no growth. Presumably this pause in online growth was the result of a slowing economy and the loss of some of the magic of the Internet following the collapse of the dot.com investment bubble.

The profile of Internet users still has a bias towards the more affluent, better educated consumers, but the profile by age is looking more like a cross section of all adults – up to, but not including, those over 65, who comprise 16% of all adults but only 5% of those online.

One other interesting finding in this research is that there has been little change in the amount of time Internet users spend online. On every occasion we have measured it, they have been spending seven or eight hours online each week. A reasonable assumption however is that as technology and Internet skills have improved, people can get more done now in the seven or eight hours they spend online than they could have a few years ago.

Humphrey Taylor is the chairman of The Harris Poll^®, Harris Interactive^SM.

TRENDS 1995 – 2002

ONLINE FROM HOME, WORK OR OTHER LOCATION

Base: All Adults

PC AND INTERNET USE: TRENDS 1995- 2002

Base: All Adults

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NOTES:

1. All samples of 2,000 or more adults, conducted by telephone.

2. "Use Internet" includes all adults who use Internet from home, offices, school, library or other location.

* Estimated from other sources.

PROFILE OF ONLINE POPULATION

(February-March 2002)

Base: All Adults

TABLE 4

NUMBERS OF ADULTS WHO ARE ONLINE (IN MILLIONS)

Base: All Adults

The Harris Poll^® was conducted by telephone within the United States between February 13 and 19, 2002 among a nationwide cross section of 1,021 adults and a similar survey of 1,017 adults interviewed between March 13 and 19, 2002. Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults and number of voice/telephone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.

In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

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J15938 & J16094
Q151 – Q175