Cosmo Daisey:NYTIMES: AOL SURVEY: Calls Internet a Necessity
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December 4, 1998
Releasing Survey, AOL Calls Internet a Necessity
By LISA NAPOLI /library/tech/reference/napolibio.html/library/tech/reference/napolibio.html
In an effort to illustrate that the Internet is becoming increasingly important to Americans, America Online on Thursday released a survey of Internet users, saying the results demonstrated that the online medium "dramatically improves people's lives."
Among the 60 questions posed in the telephone survey, conducted by the research firm Roper Starch, was this hypothetical query: If you were stranded on a desert island, would you rather have a phone, a television, or an online connection?
<NYT_LINKS_ONSITE type = main version = 1.0
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</NYT_LINKS_ONSITE The answer from 67 percent of the respondents: the Internet.
That and more concrete questions were put to a statistical sampling of 1,001 people, all of whom are Internet users, and half of whom use AOL to access the Internet. The questions were not specifically about AOL, but rather an attempt to track general trends in online usage.
Bob Pittman, the president of AOL, said the survey showed that "going online is increasingly becoming a necessity." Forty-four percent of the respondents agreed with that statement, and 77 percent said they believe being online has made their lives better.
In a dining room at the 21 Club in Manhattan on Thursday morning, Pittman and Edward Keller, the president of Roper Starch, unveiled the report, which paints a picture of a rapidly growing medium, and a public that is ever more reliant on it for personal and professional communications, as well as research.
Pittman added that the findings show online users find many activities easier to conduct online than off -- including tracking stocks, researching, and communicating.
Pittman himself said that most of the survey results were not surprising and that they confirmed trends he already believed existed.
And outside analysts said such surveys, even when they state the obvious, were designed to convince advertisers of the viability of the medium.
"A lot of the stuff they've got here is 'so what,'" said Shelley Morrisette, group director for new media for Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. He said the fluid nature of the medium makes it difficult to predict different users' experiences.
He added: "I don't find anything remarkably wrong with these statistics. I'm just saying you can spin statistics in ways that give a positive story. What they're trying to show here is the Internet is important and therefore advertisers should park some of their dollars."
Another analyst, Mark Mooridian, a senior analyst at Jupiter Communications, a research firm in New York, said it seemed superfluous to quantify what is clearly evident in the culture. "It seems in one respect you don't have to ask those questions if you've got a movie coming out starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan called 'You've Got Mail,'" he said.
America Online also said that among the survey respondents:
Women made up 57 percent of new online users in the past 12 months.
65 percent of were over age 35.
69 percent said they felt it was "important" for children to go online.
71 percent said they research purchases online.
47 percent of those who own laptops take them on vacation, and 26 percent check their e-mail.<b/>
To gather the statistics, 1,001 Internet users 18 years and older in the United States were surveyed by telephone over the summer about their home surfing habits. The study had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
A spokeswoman said the results of the study would be accessible to AOL users at keyword: Press.
Related Sites
These sites are not part of The New York Times on the Web, and The Times has no control over their content or availability.
 America Online
 Roper Starch Worldwide
 Forrester Research
 Jupiter Communications
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