01/29/96 A SURVEY THAT HEARS AMERICA SURFING

A SURVEY THAT HEARS AMERICA SURFING

JUST WHO IS ON THE INTER-net, and what do they use it for? A survey of 7,300 U.S. households and 40 focus groups conducted over the past two years by New York City-based market researcher Find/SVP Inc. has come up with some interesting answers.
Some 9.5 million Americans--1.1 million of whom are under the age of 18--consider themselves Internet users. That means approximately 6.4% of all U.S. households with a telephone contain at least one person who uses the Net for more than just zapping out E-mail. Unsurprisingly, more than half (51%) of those surveyed said they first began exploring the Internet last year amid all the hype and media attention.
More telling are how they use the Net and why. Contrary to the industry's conventional wisdom, more people log onto the Net exclusively from home, not from the office--37% vs. 20%. The reason? ``Many, many business users are going home to access the Net in order to learn how to use it,'' says Thomas E. Miller, vice-president of Find's Emerging Technologies Research Group, which conducted the survey. ``They just don't have the time to do this at work.'' The boss may be glad to hear it, because 52% of those surveyed say they access the Net for personal reasons, while only 35% use it for business reasons. And that won't change any time soon: 61% of all users expect their personal use to increase next year, as opposed to the 44% who reckon their business use will increase.
EDITED BY PAUL M. ENG