The Harris Poll^® #8, February 5, 2003

Those with Internet Access to Continue to Grow but at a Slower Rate

67% of adults (140 million people) are now online, including 57% who go online at home.
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by Humphrey Taylor

The Internet investment bubble may have burst, but the online population continues to grow, albeit at a much slower pace than in the 90s. The latest measures of Internet use by The Harris Poll^® are that 67% of all adults are now online from somewhere, including 57% who use the Internet at home, 28% who use it at work and 18% who do so from a college, library, cyber café or other location.

However, Internet growth has been much slower over the last two years than it was in the 90s. In 1995, we found only 9% of adults were online. This increased rapidly to 19% in 1996, 30% in 1997, 56% in 1999, and 63% in 2000. So it has increased by four percentage points between late 2000 and late 2002. All of this recent growth has come from increased use of the Internet from home – up from 49% at the end of 2000 to 57% now.

In total numbers (based on rapidly rising percentages in contrast to a much more slowly increasing adult population) these results mean that those online grew from 17.5 million adults in 1995 to over 50 million in 1997 and over 100 million in 1999. Our latest data show that 140 million adults now go online.

We continue to find that those online spend an average of seven hours a week on the Internet. While this number has stayed virtually unchanged since we first asked about it in 1999, this does not reflect the increasing sophistication of Internet users and the growth in the use of broadband and faster modems.

In our most recent polls, more than a quarter (27%) of all those online now have a broadband connection, including cable, ISDN, T1 and T3 lines and ADSL/DSL. This is an increase from only 22% early last year. Interestingly, fully 27% of all those who are online do not know what type of connection they have, but it is reasonable to assume that these relatively unsophisticated Internet users are mostly using slower modems and are not using broadband.

Other Harris Interactive surveys have also found that Internet users have become more skilled users of the Web and find information or do transactions more quickly than they used to. People are doing more things online and doing them faster.

Those online still tend to be somewhat younger, better educated, and more affluent than the total adult population. However, as Internet population has grown, so the profile of Internet users has become more like that of the total population. The Internet population now includes many more low income and older people than it used to.

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

TRENDS 1995 – 2002

ONLINE FROM HOME, WORK OR OTHER LOCATION

Base: All adults

NOTE: N/A means, "not asked"

PC AND INTERNET USE: TRENDS 1995- 2002

Base: All adults

NOTES:

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

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

* Estimated from other sources.

PROFILE OF ONLINE POPULATION

(November – December 2002)

Base: All adults

NUMBERS OF ADULTS WHO ARE ONLINE (IN MILLIONS)

Base: All adults

• July 2002 U.S. Census projections (209,000,000 total adults aged 18 or over)

TYPE OF INTERNET CONNECTION

"What type of Internet connection do you have for your home computer or other primary computer?"

Base: Adults online

*Includes ISDN, cable, ADSL/DSL, T1 or T3 lines.

This issue of The Harris Poll^® is based on more than 2,033 interviews conducted by telephone within the United States during November and December 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 one percentage point 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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