uptake and persistence

This page highlights figures about the uptake of communication technologies and services, supplementing the Communications Revolution profile and the Metrics & Statistics guide.

It covers -

• introduction
• time to reach US audience of 50 million
• time to reach 70% of households
• Australian telecoms traffic
• data versus voice
• money
• entertainment

     introduction

[under development]

     time to reach US audience of 50 million

AM radio - 38 years

television - 13 years

web - 4 years

     time to reach 70% of households

Another measure is provided by the time taken to reach a specific number of households. Figures published by the US Census Bureau for example suggest that the 70% mark was reached -

electricity - 49 years

telephone - 63 years

mobile phone - 20 years

AM radio - 15 years

FM radio - 5 years

B&W television - 10 years

colour television - 20 years

cable television - 37 years

VCR - 10 years

answering machine - 12 years

microwave oven - 30 years

mobile phone - 13 years

web - 7 years

As of 1955 some 95% of US households are claimed as owning an electric refrigerator, with the UK supposedly reaching the 75% mark as late as 1980.

A perspective on Australian and overseas uptake of particular media and non-ICT devices is provided in figures on the following page of this Note.

In summary, time taken to reach 70% of Australian households is

VCR - 17 years

microwave ovens - 26 years

CD player - 19 years

     Australian telecoms traffic

[under development]

     data v voice

global telecommunication traffic generated by data transmission exceeds traffic generated by voice transmission in 2001 (up from 15-25% in 1997)

     selected internet stats

The size & shape page of our metrics guide points to various internet statistics, from which we've extracted -

number of registered domains (June 00) - 17.75 million, 100% growth pa

number of hosts (January 00) - 88 million

number of secure servers (May 00) - 74 thousand, 100% growth pa

time to register first million domain names - four years

time to move from 4 to 5 million names - three months

     money

One perspective on uptake of communication technologies is provided by statistics about spending on hardware and advertising.

Susan Douglas' Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni Press 1987) for example notes US growth in the sale of radio equipment - from US$60 million in 1922 to US$843 million in 1929.

Year - US$m sales
1922 - 60
1923 - 136
1924 - 358
1925 - 430
1926 - 506
1927 - 426
1928 - 651
1929 - 843

     persistence

The US 2005 Electronic Substitution for Mail: Models and Results, Myth and Reality study (PDF) questions forecasts about the imminent death of the public mail system, noting that volumes have increased rather than shrunk in tandem with uptake of electronic messaging. Much of that increase, of course, relates to printed junk mail.

Normalisation of the online population means that use of the net increasingly reflects offline personal pursuits such as hobbies, consumption of music and videos, engagement with adult content and personal relationships.

     fun

For those online, the net has come to serve as a universal entertainment device.

65% of the US online population reported going online "to browse just for fun" as of January 2002, 44% growth on March 2000. 22% supposedly go online "just for fun" on a typical day.

That is consistent with UK figures from Sheffield University in January 2003, with 59% of respondents going online "for fun".

In 2006 the Pew Internet Project reported that around two-thirds of all US internet users "have tried surfing the Web", with some 40 million people indicating that they went "surfing for fun" on a typical day in December 2005. Supposedly

• 34% of online men were surfing for fun on an average day in December, compared with 26% of women.
• 37% of internet users between ages 18 - 29 were browsing for fun on an average day; 31% of those ages 30 - 49; 24% of those over age 50.
• 39% of home broadband users were browsing for fun on a typical day, compared with 23% of dial up users.

     entertainment

Figures about online music use are contentious, given claims by some groups that downloading is as american as apple pie (and indeed specifically permitted in the Constitution) and by other groups that it is either an avocation of a minority of teenage terrorists or an epidemic that means the end of civilisation as we know it (starting with US$5bn losses).

Supposedly 32% of US users have downloaded music (as of October 2002), with the number of users who download on a typical day doubling from 3 million to 6 million between 2000 and 2002. 5% of the online US population was downloading music on an average day in October 2002, up from the 3% that reported doing so in the summer of 2000. The December 2003 Pew I&AM report suggested that online men are more likely than women to download music, that "this activity is particularly appealing to online minorities" and those with broadband connections, and that it is biased towards young adults and those with modest household incomes. The figures do not differentiate between illicit and licit downloads, ie not all downloading breaches copyright.

games

In the US 37% of users are reported to have played games online as of September 2002, a 45% growth from March 2000. Men are more likely than women to have played games online; the activity is most popular among young adult users and minority groups but is strongly associated with broadband connections and high levels of experience online.

hobbies and sports

The December 2003 Pew I&AM report suggested that 77% of US users (81% men, 73% women) had "searched for hobby or interest information online" as of January 2002, up 40% from March 2000. Pew estimates the number of users researching hobbies on a typical day as around 19%. Supposedly 33% of users who had recently started a new hobby said the net played a "crucial or important" role in taking up that new activity. 65% of Sheffield's UK users report using the net to find hobby information.

Overall, the younger the user, the more likely that person is to have sought out hobby information online, although US teenagers are significantly less likely to go to hobby sites compared to adult users. Seeking information on hobbies has been one of the more popular activities among the over-64 cohort.

44% of US users have checked for sports scores or information online. Consistent with broader offline demographics younger users are the most likely age cohorts to seek sports information online. Pew suggests that in September 2002 some 51% of the 18-29 age cohort reported checking for sports information, 45% of the 30-49 cohort, 32% of the 50-64 cohort and 38% of those older than 64.

blogs and other content creation

The separate profile about weblogs suggests that reports about the 'blogging revolution' have been overstated and pointed to detailed studies noting that few blogs last more than a couple of weeks. Having an internet connection unsurprisingly doesn't mean that you have something to say, the ability to say it or an appreciative audience.

Only a small part of the online population has contributed to a Wiki and outside academia there has been little self-publishing.

19% of Pew's users (arguably reflecting sample problems and not truly representative of the online population) reported that they had created online content as of October 2002. That includes "helping to build a Web site, creating an online diary, or posting their thoughts on an online bulletin board or other online community". The October 2002 figure is down on that of January 2002, when 20% of Pew's online Americans said they had created content for the web. Supposedly 34% of broadband users said they had created content (mostly in the course of employment?) and 11% had done so the day before, although only 4% of all users were creating content on a typical day. Other reports suggest that bloggers are typically under 25, with a strong bias towards middle class females.

In 2004 Pew announced that

44% of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites, creating blogs, and sharing files ...

• 21% have posted photographs to web sites
• 17% have posted written material on sites (2% maintain blogs)
• 6% have posted artwork on sites
• 5% have contributed audio files to sites, 3% have contributed video files
• 13% maintain their own sites
• 10% have posted comments to an online newsgroup (a smaller fraction has posted video, audio, or photo files to a newsgroup)
• 8% have contributed material to sites run by their businesses.
• 7% have contributed material to sites run by religious, professional or other organisations
• 7% have web cams running that allow other internet users to see live pictures of them and their surroundings
• 4% have contributed material to sites created for their families

The figures are reflective of a small sample of US users, rather than the global internet population, and should be treated with considerable caution.

gambling

Most studies suggest that the demographics of online gambling are broadly similar to those of the offline gambling population, with a spread of income, gender and education. Nielsen-Netratings claims that 5.9 million Europeans visited online gambling sites in January 2003, up from 2.8 million in the preceding January.

adult content

This site features a more detailed profile about consumption of online adult content, including erotic chat, still images and video.

Contrary to claims by particular censorship advocates, in advanced economies consumption of online 'smut' does not appear to be restricted to male teens, gay males or 'dirty old men'. As with over-the-counter rental/purchase of adult videos and print material, there is a spread of ages, income, education and gender.

dating

This site features a more detailed profile about online dating.

In summary, use of the net for relationships - whether through chat and email (particularly popular among youth) or through matchmaking sites - does not exhibit strong age, education, gender, income or preference biases beyond that of the online population.

other media

There is disagreement about the impact of the net on consumption of 'traditional media', in particular claims that it has significantly eroded television viewing or attendance at cinemas and replaced purchase of newspapers.

Some early surveys for example suggested that 40% of users reported watching "less" television, in particular free-to-air broadcast television. Those reports were embraced by some readers of works such as Joseph Turow's Breaking Up America: Advertisers & the New Media World (Chicago: Chicago Uni Press 1997) and Bruce Owen's The Internet Challenge To Television (Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 1999).

Closer examination of the data suggests that the reduction of time spent in front of the box varied considerably and that many users reduced their viewing by under 30 minutes per day. More recent studies indicate that many users are 'multi-tasking', ie listening to a radio broadcast (or recorded music on a CD or device such as an iPod) or a television broadcast while surfing the net.

There appears to be no Australian or global correlation between reduced movie consumption and the net, with fluctuations in cinema audiences instead reflecting the state of the economy and the quality of offerings from the film studios.

 

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