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| Censorship ranks as top Internet issue | ||
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Survey tracks demographics, top trends of cyberspace By Alan Boyle MSNBC |
Censorship leads the list of most important issues facing the Internet, according to one of the world’s biggest and longest-running surveys on the World Wide Web. More than 15,000 Internet users took part in Georgia Tech’s Graphic, Visualization and Usability Center latest survey, conducted during October and November. The GVU WWW User Surveys began in January 1994 and have come out twice a year since then. |
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The sixth survey, released this week, marks the first time respondents were asked to list the top issue facing the Internet. Efforts to censor content were cited by 35.9 percent, 26.2 percent mentioned privacy, and 14.1 percent ranked navigation of the Internet as their top issue. Other issues included Internet taxation (6 percent) and encryption (5.4 percent). The predominance of Western culture and the English language on the Internet was ranked the top issue by less than 1 percent — which is not surprising, since more than 82 percent of the survey respondents were from the United States. The Graphic, Visualization and Usability Center uses online announcements and banner ads to solicit respondents to fill out its survey on the Web. This year, the center even offered several $250 cash prizes as an incentive for completing questionnaires. Because the respondents are self-selecting rather than randomly selected, GVU’s results are skewed toward more experienced and more frequent Web users. Nevertheless, the semiannual surveys are important yardsticks of Internet development because they track online use since the days when Web browsers were novelties. Doctoral student James Pitkow was the originator of the survey and continues to conduct it along with fellow student Colleen Kehoe. Among the trends indicated by the most recent survey:  The average respondent was 34.9 years old, representing a rise from the average six months ago (33) and a year ago (32.7). Most of the respondents were male. The 69-31 split was nearly identical to that of the previous survey, but viewed over the longer term, the percentage for females has risen dramatically from 5 percent in 1994 and 18 percent in 1995. More than half of the respondents used 28.8 kbps modems to connect to the Internet. That represents a sharp rise in the past six months, from 39 percent to 51 percent in the new survey. But the proportion of Internet users connecting at speeds greater than 28.8 has been declining slowly and steadily. Speed of connection was cited as the No. 1 problem for Web users. More than two-thirds of the respondents said they were not willing to pay fees for accessing information on the Web. About a third acknowledged providing false information to a Web site during the online registration process. The most widely cited reason for not registering at a Web site was the lack of clear terms and conditions for the use of the data collected by the server. Almost two-thirds of the respondents said they used the Web primarily at home. The most common Web activity was browsing, followed by entertainment, education and work. The number of respondents using the Web for shopping has been steadily increasing, from 11.1 percent a year ago to 14.9 percent six months ago to 18.8 percent in this recent study.Other questions addressed views on anonymity and financial transactions on the Internet, Web browsers (most expected to be using Netscape Navigator in the next 12 months) and favorite late-night talk-show host (David Letterman came out on top). The survey even asked respondents about their political inclinations, using a quiz put together by Advocates for Self-Government, a libertarian group. Based on their answers, about 38 percent were rated “centrist,” 27 percent were considered “left-liberal” and 25 percent were given a “libertarian” label. |
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