Are there more men than women in the broadband population? Can you guess the percent typically access the Internet via wi-fi? What percent are accessing the Internet from a mobile device? Like a map, this Netpop Guide points you to graphs concerning the basics of online usage. Think of it, quite literally, as the Who, What, Where, Why and When of broadband behavior.

Discovery

First, let’s get a demographic picture of the broadband population. It is an essential step in analyzing findings from any research study. We’ll start with four basic demographic variables and add online tenure as well. The Internet is enabled by technology – usually a computer and a wire of some kind. But there are many means and modes of online access driven by an increasing number of net-enabled devices and services. This series of graphs helps you sort through the various “flavors” of how and where people go online:

Descriptive

The following graphs will help round-out the demographic picture of the broadband population: Perhaps you’re interested in understanding the “day in the life” of broadband users. In an “always on” world, it is reasonable to want to know just how long, and how often, the average user goes online. Netpop offers a series of graphs illustrating the days of the week, the hours of the day, and how long users typically spend online per day: This “always-on” world is facilitated by a variety of net-enabled devices. If you want more than the basic devices graph we recommend above, look here:

Dimension

No overview of online usage would be complete without knowing what users are doing online. After all, the Internet is an interactive medium that allows its users to do innumerable actions alone and in conjunction with others. The following graphs cover a spectrum of online activities, everything from videos to shopping and VoIP. While it would be impossible to measure every activity that’s doable online, we’ve done our best to cover the ones we feel are worth tracking: If it would help to have a more high-level view of online usage, we recommend the following graph which depicts the percent of time users spend on each of five basic areas of online usage. Think of it as a summary of online usage for a more general understanding of how people allocate their time online: Finally, the Internet offers users an opportunity to journey to, from, and through countless websites. High-speed connections have made it easier for people to go to more websites than ever before, or even multiple sites simultaneously by opening multiple browser windows. This has prompted a trend away from all-in-one “portal” sites to a more decentralized Web-world that favors niche or specialty sites. To track this trend, Netpop asks broadband users to estimate the percent of time they spend on their “home page” versus “other sites.”

Access this graph if it is an issue you are also interested in evaluating:

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