Page 230 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Diffusion of Information Technology among Individuals
Table 5.1. Changing Demographics of Internet Users

Internet users
October April February
1996 1999 2001 U.S. population

Mean age 38 40 38 43
College degree (%) 48 39 35 25
Female (%) 36 45 47 51
Caucasian/White (%) 88 86 84 75

Notes: An “Internet user” is defined as someone who reports using the Internet
more than once per week. All data include only persons 18 years and older,
except for U.S. education figures, which show the fraction of those 25 years and
older with a four-year college degree. Race values follow census bureau practice,
showing the fraction Caucasian/white compared with black/African-American,
AmericanIndianandAlaskaNative,Asian,andNativeHawaiianorotherPacific
Islander, independent of ethnicity. Source for Internet users is author’s surveys;
source for U.S. population figures is U.S. Census Bureau 2000 census (note that
national population values change little over the period from 1996 to 2001).

beginning of a new, more sluggish period of growth like radio after the
mid-1940s and television after 1960, or like telephony across much of its
history.
Access to the Internet is only part of the story of the changing informa-
tion environment. The frequency of use of the Internet as well as the ways
people access it are also changing. In October 1996, only about 3 percent
ofallAmericanadultsusedtheInternetdaily.InFebruary1998,the figure
was up to 13 percent, and in April of 1999 it had reached 18 percent. By
February 2001, about 23 percent of adults were using the Internet daily.
Much more so than access, this is the behavioral phenomenon of interest.
Demographically, Internet users look increasingly like the rest of the
U.S. population, which is to be expected as access and use expand into
larger fractions of the population. In 1996, when only a few percent of
adults used the Internet regularly, Internet demographics differed sub-
stantially from the demographics of the rest of the United States on most
variables. Then, nearly half of regular Internet users had a college de-
gree and nearly two-thirds were men. By 2001, only a third of Internet
users had a college degree, drawing closer to the U.S. population figure
of 25 percent, and women had almost drawn even with men, as Table 5.1
shows.

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