Recession driving Americans to spend more time online – poll

Instead of going out, Americans now spend more time getting their kicks online due to the recession, according to the results of the poll released Wednesday by market research firm Harris Interactive.

An average American user now spends 13 hours online per week, a big jump from the mere 7 hours from 1999 through 2002.  From 2003-2006 and 2007, users spent an average of 8-9 hours and 11 hours online, respectively.

The figures only cover the time spent surfing the Internet and do not include e-mail.

Harris Interactive says there are a number of reasons why Americans have become more active in cyberspace, and one of them is the down economy. Save for the monthly access fees, surfing the Web is free compared to going to bars, for instance. In fact, the number of hours spent online reached its peak in October 2008 when the global economic slump became more evident and the U.S. presidential election was only a month away.

The results of the poll also suggest that more people now have access to the Internet and that they are more at ease utilizing cyberspace to watch TV, shop, use a variety of applications, or keep up with their friends on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, says Harris Interactive.

Individual Internet use varies slightly, however. Twenty percent of the 2,029 adults polled are online for two hours or less per week, while 24 percent are on the Net for 24 hours or more.

Those aged 30-39 are the heaviest Internet users and the biggest online shoppers at 62 percent compared to 56 percent of those in the 40-49 age bracket, says Harris Interactive.

According to the poll which Harris Interactive conducted from July to October this year, about 80 percent of the total population in the U.S., or 184 million, are on the Internet.  In 1999, only 56 percent of the total population used the Web, while in 1995, the figure was at 9 percent.

The results of the Harris Interactive poll also showed that the number of people who use the Internet at home is steadily rising.  In 1996, it was only 16 percent, in 1999, it rose to 46 percent, 66 percent in 2005, and finally, to 76 percent this year.