Internet and our Life

The vast majority of online Americans hold a high opinion of the Internet as a place to conduct the everyday tasks and pursue the everyday pleasures of life, such as checking the weather, doing their banking, communicating with friends and family, and playing games.  Over the course of the four years in which the Pew Internet Project has been tracking online activities, a growing number of users have acted on their positive opinions of the Internet and gone online to do these things.

• 92% of Internet users say the Internet is a good place to go for getting everyday information.
• 85% say the Internet is a good way to communicate or interact with others.
• 75% say the Internet is a good place to conduct everyday transactions.
• 69% say the Internet is a good way to entertain themselves in everyday life.

Throughout this report, we present percentages of “Internet users who do an activity online.” To be clear, we calculated these percentages based on only those Internet users for whom an activity is relevant. That is, we made our calculations based on the percentage of Internet users who undertake that activity somehow in their everyday lives – either offline or online, or both ways. For example, of all Internet users in this study, 53% of them check sport scores somehow in their everyday lives, while 47% of them never check sports scores. Therefore, when we then report that “55% of the Internet users check sports scores online.” we are referring to 55% of that subset of the 53% of Internet users who ever, somehow in their everyday lives, check sports scores.

Thus, we find that in the activities we have used to probe whether people get informationfor their everyday lives:

• 87% of Internet users who ever use maps or get driving directions do this online.
• 69% of Internet users who say they get weather reports get such reports online.
• 63% of Internet users who say they get news in their lives get news online.
• 55% of Internet users who ever check sports scores in their lives get such information online.
• 50% of Internet users who ever look up phone numbers, addresses or zip codes in their lives get such information online.

Similarly, we find that in the activities we have used to explore everyday interpersonalcommunication:

• 79% of Internet users who say they communicate with friends and family use the Internet for such communications.
• 52% of Internet users who exchange greetings, cards and invitations go online to do so.
• 46% of Internet users who say they ever plan gatherings and arrange personal meetings use the Internet for such purposes.
• 26% of Internet users who ever plan meetings with new people or dates use the Internet for those purposes.

At the same time, we find that in the activities we have used to explore commonplacetransactions:

• 55% of the Internet users who buy tickets for movies, plays and sporting events do such activities online.
• 44% of the Internet users who say they do banking and bill paying use the Internet for those purposes.
• 33% of the Internet users who ever purchase everyday items go online to buy things such as books and groceries.
• 22% of the Internet users who schedule appointments and meetings use the Internet for such purposes.

Finally, we find that in the activities we have used to explore the ways people entertain themselves in everyday life:

• 46% of the Internet users who ever play games do so online.
• 34% of the Internet users who say they have hobbies go online to pursue their hobbies.
• 23% of the Internet users who say they listen to music or radio regularly do so online.
• 18% of the Internet users who say they read for pleasure will read online.
• 16% of the Internet users who watch videos, movie previews, or cartoons do so online.

The integration of the Internet into everyday life doesn’t match its popular appeal. Most Internet users still default to the traditional offline ways of communicating, transacting affairs, getting information, and entertaining themselves.

Two different measures suggest that, overall, the virtual world of the Internet still takes second place to the real world as the place to accomplish daily tasks or enjoy recreation. First, among the many Internet users who toggle between the offline and online worlds for activities, most use the “real world” alternative rather than the online alternative. For example, Internet users buy movie tickets more often at the box office than buy them online.

Second, when Internet users do a certain activity exclusively in one realm, more will still do it exclusively offline than exclusively online. For example, among Internet users who ever look for sports scores, almost twice as many will look for them exclusively offline as exclusively online. Of Internet users who ever look up addresses or phone numbers, many more will use phone books than online sources to get this information.