World Wide Web User Profiles by Geographic Region

World Wide Web User Profiles by Geographic Region

by Erik Granered

From the Non-USA Dataset of GVU's 3rd WWW User Survey


The following material may be freely copied and reproduced, subject to some conditions .

Acknowledgment

Sincere thanks are extended to Jim Pitkow of the GVU WWW Survey team for compiling and making the Non-USA dataset available to me. Without his quick and competent responses to my e-mail inquiries, this study would never have taken place.


This is a long document. You may jump to topics by selecting from this list of contents:

Background

Response Profile by Geographic Region

Summary of Findings

General Demographics

[Gender] [Marital Status] [Dependents] [Race]

Professional Demographics

[Education] [Occupation] [Income] [Computer Hours at Work]

Computer Use

[Internet Access Provider] [Number of Computers] [Fee Preferences]

[Computer Fun Hours] [Internet Experience] [Share Machine] [Browser]


Background

GVU's 3rd WWW User Survey

With just over 13,000 responses, GVU's WWW User survey is by far the largest electronic survey ever. For analysis of the complete dataset please refer to these two sites:

1. <http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/> (The GVU Center at Georgia Tech) - please see "Additional Resources" for a true link.

2. <http://www.umich.edu/~sgupta/hermes/> (the Hermes Project) -- please see "Additional Resources" for a true link.

This analysis is concerned with the responses from outside the United States. There were 2,521 non-US responses, 19 percent of the total, representing 80 different countries.

Methodology

The tab-delineated, ascii text dataset of non-US respondents to the GVU 3rd WWW User Survey was downloaded from the GVU FTP site at <ftp.gatech.cc.edu>. The data was loaded on a PC and processed in Microsoft Excel 5.0, Microsoft Access 2.0, and Microsoft Word For Windows 6.0. The geographic subsets were created in Microsoft Access. The queries for each individual question were conducted in Access using Query Wizard's "find duplicates" function. The results of these queries were then moved to Excel for additional analysis and graphics work. The final graphs were exported to Word for Windows, where the text was added.

Limitations

The GVU Survey home page elaborates on two sets of limitations, self-selection and non-probabilistic sampling. The language barrier must be considered a contributing factor to self-selection process. The high number of responses from other English-speaking countries such as Australia (236) and Canada (692) may not only indicate that these countries have a high degree of connectivity, but that language in fact facilitated the decision to take the survey.

The small number of responses from regions such as Latin America and the Middle East does not necessarily indicate that these responses are not representative samples of World Wide Web users in these areas as Internet connectivity is not as advanced there as in Western countries.


Response Profile by Geographic Region

1. The Non-USA Dataset

There were a total of 2,521 responses to GVU's 3rd WWW User Survey from outside the United States. These responses were from 80 different countries. The average age of the respondents was 32.

2. Asia

There were 147 responses from Asia. These responses came from Hong Kong (21), India (3), Japan (27), Malaysia (4), Singapore (59), South Korea (10), Taiwan (5), Thailand (2) and other (12). The average age of the respondents was 31.

3. Canada

There were 692 responses from Canada, representing every Canadian province. The average age of the respondents was 35.

4. Europe

There were 1,273 responses from Europe, by far the largest number of responses outside the United States. These responses came from Austria (28), Belgium (35), Croatia (35), Czech Republic (2), Denmark (29), Estonia (2), Finland (66), France (60), Germany (111), Greece (3), Iceland (14), Ireland (20), Italy (49), Netherlands (88), Norway (51), Poland (4), Portugal (5), Russia (4), Spain (10), Sweden (85), Switzerland (60), United Kingdom (495), other (15). It is noteworthy to point out that the responses from the United Kingdom made up 39 percent of the European dataset, and 3.8 percent of the total, fourth after California, New York and Texas. The average age of the European respondents was 31.

5. Latin America

There were only 53 responses from Latin America. Fifty percent of these responses were from Mexico (24), followed by Brazil (9), Chile (5), Colombia (3), Costa Rica (3), and other(4). The average age was 30, the lowest of all the geographic regions.

6. Middle East

There were only 30 responses from the Middle East, coming from Israel (27) and Kuwait (2), and other (1). The average age of these respondents was 35.

7. Oceania

Oceania includes Australia (236), New Zealand (43) and other (17), giving a total of 269 respondents. The average age was 35.

8. Responses from South Africa and Antarctica were not handled in this study.


Summary of Findings

  1. As a group, non-US World Wide Web users are male, highly educated, with high incomes and with plenty of computer experience. Many are married and have children. This sophistication probably reflects the relatively high entry barriers that still exist in becoming familiar with the Internet. Commercial vendors such as America Online and CompuServe have lowered these entry barriers, but non-US respondents do not yet use these commercial services, be it for reasons of access or cost.
  2. Non-US World Wide Web users are predominantly white. The only substantial non-white communities could be found in Latin America (71 percent Spanish) and Asia (66 percent Asian). In both these regions, the percentage of white respondents was surprisingly large at about 28 percent.
  3. The commercial Internet user-revolution that is taking place in the US is reflected among non-US World Wide Web Users as well. While educators, students and computer professionals still dominate, there are substantial groups of "professionals, managers and other" in all of the geographic regions.
  4. Most respondents indicate that their willingness to pay for access to World Wide Web sites and databases would depend on cost and quality. This shows that they are at least open-minded to the possibility of paying if the information is good and reasonably priced. This survey did not contain any information regarding people's willingness to use a credit card to pay for the information.
  5. Most respondents do not use their computers as a recreational tool. While most users do play with their computers to some extent, few do so more than 10 hours per week.
  6. There is a relationship between regional connectivity and Internet experience within each region. For example, Europeans and Australians have more Internet experience than Latin Americans and Asians.
  7. Perhaps the most surprising result of this survey is the extent to which Mozilla dominates as a Browser among non-US World Wide Web users. With all other browsers represented in most of the regions, none of them get even close to Mozilla, which enjoys a market share of 85 percent overall.

General Demographics


Gender

Survey Question: What is your gender?

Findings


Marital Status

Survey question: What is your current marital status?

Findings


Dependents

Survey Question: How many people in your household are dependent children?

Findings


Race

Survey Question: What is your race/ethnic origin?

Findings


Professional Demographics


Education

Survey Question: Please indicate the highest level of education completed.

Findings


Occupation

Survey Question: Which of the following categories best describe your primary occupation?

Findings


Income

Survey Question: Please indicate your current household income in U.S. dollars.

Findings


Computer Hours at Work

Survey Question: How many hours per week do you use your computer for work?

Findings


Computer Use

Internet Access Provider

Survey Question: What is the nature of your primary Internet access provider?

Findings


Number of Computers

Survey Question: How many personal computers do you own?

Findings


Fee Preferences

Survey Question: Would you be willing to pay for information from WWW sites/databases?

Findings


Computer Fun Hours

Survey Question: How many hours per week do you use your computer for fun/play?

Findings


Internet Experience

Survey Question: How many years have you been on the Internet (including email, gopher, ftp, etc.)?

Findings


Share Machine

Survey Question: Are you the primary/sole user of the machine you are currently using?

Findings


Browser

Findings