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The report, entitled "The Broadband Difference - How Online Americans' Behavior Changes with High-Speed Internet Connections at Home," found that broadband users are more likely than dial-up users to create Internet content, use the Net for research and perform multiple Internet activities in their daily lives.
According to the report, 24 million Americans have high-speed connections at home, constituting 21 percent of all Internet users. This figure has quadrupled from 6 million when Pew began monitoring these statistics in June 2000.
Eighty-two percent of broadband users are likely to be on-line during a typical day, compared to just 58 percent of people with dial-up connections.
Overall usage of the Net and Internet tools is also much more substantial among those with high-speed connections. The report found that 39 percent of broadband users have created content such as Web sites. Some 43 percent have swapped files and displayed photos on-line, and nearly two-thirds have downloaded games, video or pictures. In all categories, at least 14 percent of these users said they performed these activities every day.
"Analysis of the broadband elite suggests that there is an emerging broadband lifestyle," the report states. "Those living that life do more work at home, watch less TV, do more on-line news-gathering and spend less time shopping in stores," the report states. "In each case, broadband users are substantially more likely than dial-up users to say the Internet has helped them get information relevant to their lives."
Broadband users also responded positively to questions about how the fast Net connections have improved their lives. Sixty-eight percent of broadband users do more research because of always-on connections, while an impressive 86 percent say that the Internet has improved their ability to learn new things. Sixty-five percent said the Net has helped them pursue hobbies, and the same number said the Internet has improved their ability to shop.
Fifty-five percent say the Internet has improved their ability to do their jobs, and 47 percent say it has improved the way they get health care.
The daily routine of broadband users tends to diverge from that of other Internet users. Thirty-seven percent say they spend less time watching television, 31 percent say that the internet has decreased the time they spend shopping in stores, and 18 percent say the Internet has decreased the time spent reading newspapers.
Any concern that all this time on-line could hurt users' social lives was dispelled by their answers to questions about friends and family. More than three-quarters of broadband users said the Internet had improved connections with friends, and 71 percent said it had improved their connections with family.
Despite the positive figures in the US, the "broadband lifestyle" is likely to be less prevalent in Europe, where consumers have far less access to broadband. According to a May report by IDC, broadband access was available to at least 50 percent of European homes and businesses at the end of 2001, but only 4 percent of homes and 8 percent of businesses have signed up for the services.
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