General Bulleted List
Actual Job
- This table gives the numbers and percentages for what people gave as their actual job position. Unfortunately, the largest category is "other" indicating that our question still needs some improvement.
Age
Graphs: [All] [Location] [Gender]
- The average age of users responding to the Sixth survey is 34.9 years old. Average age has been slowly but steadily increasing since the Fourth survey (Fourth: 32.7 years, Fifth: 33.0 years).
- Also consistent with previous surveys is the observation that, on average, women are slightly younger than men and Europeans are significantly younger than US respondents.
State or Country
- This table gives the numbers and percentages for the states and countries that people answered the survey from. Occasionally, a name will get corrupted from "United Kingdom" to "UnitedKingdom" by some browsers. If this happens, it will appear in the table twice. The correct number can be obtained by adding the two values together. Note that this is only a problem for names with a space in the middle of them.
Education Attainment
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- The distribution of educational attainment has been virtually unchanged since the Fourth survey. 56.1% of respondents have completed a college or advanced degree.
- European respondents continue to report higher levels of educational attainment than US respondents. Commercial internet service providers are not as wide spread in Europe as they are in the US; as a result, many European users have access to the web as a result of their affiliation with a university.
Falsification Of Information
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- This question was rephrased since the last survey, so the results are not directly comparable.
- For this survey, 63.1% of respondents said they had never provided false information to a site when registering. 3.4% preferred not to say, which leaves 33.5% who have provided false information. Of those who have provided false information, most (66.5%) do so infrequently (less than 25% of the time). Only 33.5% provide false information frequently (more than 25% of the time).
- A smaller percentage of females than males report ever having falsified information. Also, the likelihood of having provided false information decreases with age.
Favorite Late Night Talk Show Host
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- The largest category of respondents said that they didn't know or that this question was not applicable to them (39.9%). Of those who had a preference, Letterman was chosen over Leno more than 2:1. A large percentage of European users had a favorite host other than Letterman or Leno. This is not surprising, since both of these hosts are from the US. A higher percentage of women than men preferred Leno. Younger respondents, though, tended to prefer Letterman.
Gender
Graphs: [Location] [Age]
- The gender ratio is nearly identical to the Fifth survey, with 31.4% female and 68.6% male. European users are still predominantly male (80.2%). There was a slight increase in the percentage of women over age 50 in this survey (Sixth: 27.1%, Fifth: 24.7%).
Household Income
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- The mean average household income is $60,800 (US). The distribution of income levels is very similar to the Fifth survey: Less than $29K: 18.8%, $30-50K: 23.0%, over $50K: 41.1%.
- Europe has a higher percentage of users with incomes less than $10K, which is not surprising since many European users are students.
- The age group with the highest percentage of users who chose not to reveal their income was 19-25 years (19.33%).
How You Heard About Survey
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- Respondents could check more than one answer for this question. Also, a new category was added for the Sixth survey: search engines.
- As in all previous surveys, most users came to the survey because they saw a link on another web page. This is a useful data point for those trying to increase the traffic on their own web sites--having links from other (perhaps related) sites can be very effective in drawing traffic to a site. The next most common way of coming to the survey was through a search engine. Again this is a technique which other sites can easily take advantage of.
Major Geographical Location
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- The percentage of respondents from the US increased in this survey to 82.7%. This is even higher than the percentage in the Fourth survey (80.6%). 83% of female respondents were from the US, but all locations were more gender-balanced in this survey compared to previous surveys. Older respondents are more likely to be from the US than younger respondents (89% of those over 50 compared to 75% of those 19-25).
Major Occupation
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- There was a slight increase in the percentage of users in Management and Professional categories. European users were more likely to be in Computers or Education than their US counterparts.
- Women are only half as likely as men to be in Computer related fields, but are equally likely to be in Management or Professional positions.
- More than half of those age 19-25 are in Education (which includes being a student). Those aged 26-50 are more likely to be in Computer fields than any other.
Marital Status
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- There was a slight increase in the percentage of respondents who are married in all categories. 45.7% report being married and 36.7% report being single. More Europeans that respondents from the US report being either single or living with another. Almost 3/4 of those age 19-26 are single, while almost 3/4 of those age 50 and over are married.
Monitor Screen Size
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- Knowledge of the size of users screens can play an integral role in the development of content for WWW sites as site designers need to optimize graphics to fit the majority of user's screens. The most common screen size (diagonal) falls between 14 and 18 inches, with 25.50% of the users reporting having a 14" monitor, 24.97% reporting having a 15" monitor, and 22.77% reporting having between a 16 and 18" monitor. Laptops, which typically have screen sizes under 13" accounted for 5.7%. Europeans, males, and baby boomers (26-50 yr olds) tend to have larger screens.
Most Import Issue Facing The Internet
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- The largest category of respondents (35.9%) said that censorship was the most important issue facing the internet today. That was followed by privacy (26.2%) and navigation (14.1%). The issues that were the least cited as most important were cultural and language issues.
- Among European respondents, navigation outranked privacy as the second most important issue. And among women, privacy outranked censorship as the most important issue.
- Although the top 3 concerns had the same relative ranking for each age group (censorship, privacy, navigation), younger people were far more concerned with censorship than older users. Conversely, older people were more concerned with navigation.
Online Services Subscribed To
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- With the sharp increase in users paying for access to the Internet themselves accompanies a dramatic increase in the number of users who subscribe to a non-major Internet Provider Service (53.46% Sixth, 24.7% Fifth). While in the Fifth Survey 51.6% of the users reported not subscribing to an online service, only 30.95% of the Sixth Survey users make the same claim, and only six months later! America Online accounted for 17.16%, Compuserve 7.77% and Netcom 5.49%. This represents a slight increase for AOL and a notable decrease for Compuserve (16.6% and 11.0% in the Fifth Survey respectively).
- Europeans are more likely to not be subscribed to any online service (45.98% Europe vs 28.1% US). Compuserve has more European users (11.36%) than the US (7.87%) as well. Female respondents are slightly more likely than males to subscribe to some online service. As with the Fifth Survey, Respondents over age 50 were more likely to subscribe to an online service than other age groups. For all but one service listed, respondents aged 19-25 had the lowest percentage and respondents over age 50 had the highest.
Political Party
Graphs: [Total] [Age] [Gender]
- This question was only asked of respondents in the US.
- As with the Fifth survey, respondents are fairly polarized between the two major parties. There was a slight decrease in the percentage identifying themselves as Democrats in this survey (Sixth: 37.7%, Fifth: 41.8%). The corresponding increases were in Republicans, Libertarians, and those who would rather not say. Women were somewhat more likely to be associated with the Democratic Party. Across all age groups, the percentage who were associated with the Democratic Party was the same. For the Republican Party, though, the percentage increased with age.
Presidential Candidate
Graphs: [Total] [Age] [Gender]
- This question was only asked of US Respondents.
- 43.0% of respondents said that if the election were held on the day they were answering the survey, they would vote for Clinton. 27.5% would vote for Dole and 7.1% would vote for Perot. If we consider only those respondents who chose one of the three major candidates, the percentages are: 55.4% for Clinton, 35.5% for Dole, and 9.1% for Perot. These percentages fall within the margin of error for CNN/USA Today/Gallup Polls conducted during the same period.
- Younger respondents were more likely to vote for a third party candidate than those in other age groups.
Primary Computing Platform
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- For the third straight survey, over half of the respondents (65.91%) use some flavor of Windows (3.1, 95, or NT) as their primary computing platform. (Most notably, the percentage of those using Win95 has increased from 28.5% in the Fifth to 42.9% in the Sixth.) This percentage is up strongly from the Fifth Survey (58.6%) as well as the Third Survey (61.5%). The remaining users are mainly Apple users (25.85%). The strong presence of Apple users is most likely a result of heavy use of the Internet within educational setting, an area where Apple has traditionally strong marketshare. The other operating systems of the world (UNIX, VMS, etc.) are used by less than 5% of the respondents each. In GVU's First WWW User Survey, conducted January of 1994, over 90% of the users reported UNIX as their primary computing platform!
Primary Language
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- The vast majority (93%) reported that English was their primary language. This is an increase from the Fifth survey (88.6%). For European respondents, 10.9% use German and 3.6% use French as their primary language. 34.2% said that they use a language which was not listed as one of our choices.
Primary Place Of Access
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- As with the Fifth survey, the majority of respondents report that they primarily access the web from home (63.6%). This is an increase from the Fifth survey where the percentage was 55.4%. In Europe, however, only 36.7% report having their primary access from home (most report having it from work).
- Across all age groups, most access the web primarily from home, but that is especially true for users over age 50 (77.6%).
Race
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- The majority of respondents identified themselves as "Caucasian/White" (88.1%) which is identical to the Fifth survey. There are no differences for race with respect to gender. 5.1% of those aged 19-25 identified themselves as "Asian".
Registered To Vote
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- 88.8% of respondents reported that they were registered to vote, which is slightly lower than the Fifth survey (91.9%).
- Older respondents are more likely to be registered than younger respondents.
Since Getting On The Net I Have Become
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- Almost half (46.1%) of the respondents felt more connected to people who share their interests since coming online. This provides some evidence for the claim that the internet is more than just an information source, rather it's building new communities based on common interests instead of common geographic locations.
Voting Behavior
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- This question was only asked of those who said they were registered to vote. Of those registered, 50-60% voted in the most recent local, national, and legislative elections. Older voters were more than twice as likely to have voted in national and legislative elections. However, more than half of younger voters voted in the most recent local election. This can probably be explained by the fact that most European respondents fall into the younger age groups, and Europeans report primarily participating in local elections.
Webs Impact On Language And Culture
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- For this question, respondents could choose more than one response.
- The statement most strongly agreed with (59.2%) was that the web's impact on language and culture will be more helpful than harmful. Other statements that were strongly agreed with were that the web would help business, would unify languages, and unify people. European respondents especially felt that the web would help business and unify languages. More respondents from Europe than those from the US felt that the web would cause a loss of linguistic and cultural diversity. This is not that surprising given that Europe is more diverse than the US and that much of the current "culture and language" of the web comes from the US.
- Respondents over age 50 agreed more strongly than younger respondents with the positive impacts of the web (more helpful than harmful, will help business, and will unify people and languages). Younger respondents were more likely to see the web as harmful and causing a loss of diversity.
Who Pays For Access
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- For this question, respondents could choose more than one answer. Even more respondents than last time report paying for their own Internet access (66.62% Sixth, 57.7% Fifth, 51.0% Fourth). This is followed by having it paid for by work (28.76%). Much of this increase was focused in the US markets, where personal access rose 19 percentage point in the past year to 69.68% in the Sixth Survey from 51.8% in the Fourth Survey. Additionally, educational access via school has dropped to 13.44% from 24.5% in the Fourth. This supports the notion that Internet access is becoming a personal resource and not a heavily governmental and educational subsidized resource. European users typically had their access to the Internet paid for by work (46.64% Europe vs 27.42% US) rather than by themselves (41.57% Europe vs 69.68% US).
Willingness To Pay Fees
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- More than 2/3 of respondents (67.6%) reported that they were not willing to pay fees for accessing web materials. This number is up slightly from the Fifth survey. Respondents unwillingness to pay may stem from their perception of the value of the information currently available on the web and may change as people become used to high-quality professional sites. Alternatively, it may be a reflection of the fact that many users are already paying a service provider for access and may not be willing to pay again for content. Of those who were willing to pay, most preferred a subscription model.
- Women and younger respondents were slightly less willing to pay than other categories of respondents.
Years On Internet
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]
- The continued migration of users to the Internet is still seen in the Sixth Survey, where 36.11% of the users have gone online in the past year, though this is down from 43.1% of respondents in the Fifth Survey (April 1996), 60.3% in the Fourth (Oct 1995), and 50.21% in the Third (April 1995). Close to half of the users have now been online between 1 and 3 years (42.44%), with 14.31% between 4 and 6 years and 7.14% for over 7 years. Note that the more experienced user percentages are nearly identical to the Fifth Survey (14.13% 4-6 yrs and 7.86% 7+ yrs). This longitudinal data shows the clear bump of when the Internet began to gain wide acceptance in 1994 and 1995.
- In Surveys past, European users typically have been on the Internet for more years, the Sixth Survey marks the first time more European users have only been online for less than 6 months than their US counterparts (16.81%). This may be the beginning of the European rush!
- Female users still are flocking to the Internet, with half (50.35%) having gone online in the past year, compared to only 29.6% for males. Though as is seen in the overall decline of new users percentage wise, females with under 6 months experience has declined to 27.65% in the Sixth Survey, down from 33.97 in the Fifth, 36.8% in the Fourth, and 39.5% in the Third Surveys. The over 50 yr old age group of users is also showing signs of slow-down in new users, with only 48.26% having gone online in the past year compared to 55.86% in the Fifth Survey.