Why Do People Go Online?
Why do people go online? I know, it is a general question that could lead to several answers and also might depend on several factors as well, that also is dynamically changing according to the day or particular moment. But at Ruder Finn Intent Index are trying to simplify this question, analyzing common areas that men, women, youths and seniors could choose to go online.
The results are very interesting, here are some quick facts:
- More than twice as many people go online to socialize (82%) than to do business (39%) or shop (31%).
- 72% of people go online just to become part of a community.
- More men (42%) than women (36%) go online to do business.
- Women (91%) are much more likely to go online to socialize than men (73%).
- A majority of youths 55% go online to just to play games.
- More than half of seniors (65%) go online to be a part of an online community.
- Almost half (48%) go online to entertain others.
And even more, if you want you can also review the full results with more specific data.
How do they collect this data? Well this report is updated on quarterly basis, the sample is a minimum of 500 American adults. The index is calculated on the basis of how frequently this people is going online for 295 reasons or intents.
We’ve discussed before about how teenagers do not prefer twitter, and even though in the results shown in this site could be consider quite general, the statistics caught my attention:
- 82% go online to socialize. No surprise there, where it would be Facebook if that wasn’t true?
- 72% go online just to become part of a community. What can you say about it? Maybe a constant feeling of people to be included in some group, or self esteem issues?
- 55% of youths go online just to play games. Well I didn’t see that number coming, I was hoping around a 30% maybe? And the rest to socialize.
- 65% seniors go online to be a part of an online community. I’m not sure which age represents “seniors” but it is a great thing that elders are always trying to catch up with technology.
And what about you? Do you have your stats?
