INTERNET AND BRITISH LIFE SURVEY
Barrie Gunter
The Internet at Christmas
The Internet and British Life Survey (IBLS) is a project that has been launched to explore to way people use the Internet in Britain. Surveys are conducted online with known Internet users around the country. The survey has access to some 20,000 e-mail addresses that have been compiled from a number of Internet user databases.
Periodically, online questionnaires are posted on the IBLS web site and Internet users invited to respond. Each survey collects information about the demographic characteristics of the sample and respondents’ Internet using history. In addition, surveys focus on specific themes that are concerned with the way people use the Internet, what they use it for, their opinions about Internet services and its impact upon their lives.
The current survey, which served to launch the project, has focused on the way people use the Internet around Christmas time. It has investigated the way people use the Internet at this special time of year to keep in touch with family and friends and to seek out and purchase Christmas gifts. How much do Internet users now depend upon cyberspace for their Christmas shopping? How much do they spend? Do they have any reservations or concerns about shopping on the Internet? How significant has the Internet become, alongside or in place of more traditional forms of Christmas-time communication, in enabling people to keep in touch with their loved ones?
The Christmas Internet Survey
The fieldwork was conducted between 2 and 10 December 2002. In all, 10,000 Internet users were contacted about the survey and 3050 responded (giving a 30% response rate).
Demographic Profile
The response sample comprised nearly two-thirds male respondents (64%) and over one-third female respondents (36%). The sample exhibited a diverse age spread: 18-24 (14%), 25-34 (25%), 35-44 (24%), 45-54 (21%), 55-64 (11%), and 65+ (5%).
More than two-thirds of respondents were in full-time work (69%), with under one in ten respectively in part-time employment (9%) or unemployed (9%). Just over one in ten (11%) reported that they were in full-time education.
One in three respondents were single (33%), more than four in ten (43%) were married, and one in six (16%) were living with a partner to whom they were not married. A small minority (8%) were divorced, separated or widowed.
A clear majority of respondents (75%) had no children up to age 16 living with them in their household, one in eight (12%) had one such child, and one in seven (14%) had two or more children living at home.
An overwhelming majority of respondents (92%) were white and of European origin. The remainder were divided among Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshis (2%), Arabs (1%), Chinese (1%), other Asian (1%), Caribbean (1%) and African (1%).
Newspaper Readership
Turning to daily newspaper readership, respondents were asked which daily or evening newspapers they personally read regularly (meaning at least two copies a week). The most commonly reported daily newspaper read by respondents was The Independent (26%) followed by The Guardian (21%). This is explained by the fact that the survey universe was constructed significantly from an e-mail database supplied by the Independent Newspaper Group. The next most popularly read daily newspapers were The Times (10%) and Daily telegraph (7%). Mid-range tabloid readers of newspapers such as the Daily mail (3%) and daily express (1%) were much less commonplace among the sample, with Financial Times readers (4%) being more frequently occurring. Readers of tabloids such as The Sun (2%), Mirror (2%) and Star (less than 0.5%) indicate the broadsheet bias in the sample.
This pattern was reflected in claimed Sunday newspaper reading, for which regular reading meant at least two copies a month. The most read newspapers among this sample being The Observer (21%), Independent on Sunday (21%), Sunday Times (17%) and Sunday Telegraph (7%). These were followed by the mail on Sunday (4%), news of the World (3%), Sunday Mirror (2%), Sunday Express (1%) and then the People, Star on Sunday all achieving fewer than one percent of respondents saying they were regular readers.
Internet History
The overwhelming majority of respondents (91%) had Internet access at home, with under one in ten being wholly dependent on gaining access elsewhere (9%). Male respondents (94%) were somewhat more likely than female respondents (87%) to say that they had Internet access at home. Well over half of respondents (58%) indicated that they had had Internet access at home for at least three years. More than one in four (27%) said they had had home Internet access for between one and three years.
Male respondents (63%) were more likely than female respondents (49%) to report home Internet access for three or more years. There was an age difference in reported length of access to the Internet at home. The under 34s, (42%) were loess likely than those aged 35 and over (69%) to claim to have had home access to the Internet for 3+ years. Married respondents (68%) were far more likely than either cohabiting respondents (53%) or single respondents (44%) to say they had had home Internet access for three or more years.
Most respondents were regular users of the Internet. Nearly four in ten (39%) of those with home access said they used the Internet from home at least twice a day, with more than one in five (22%) saying they used the Internet at home at least once a day. More than one in four of these respondents (27%) claimed to access the Internet from home at least once a week. Male respondents were somewhat more regular Internet users than female respondents. More than four in ten males (43%) reported using the Internet from home two or more times a day, compared with just under one in three females (32%). The heaviest users of the Internet at home were the oldest respondents. Those aged 18 to 34 (23%) claimed to use the Internet from home two or more times a day compared with 43% of those aged 35-54 and 64% of those aged 55+.
More than two-thirds of respondents (68%) said they accessed the Internet from work at least once a day, with a further one in ten (10%) saying they did this at least once a week. Around one in six respondents (18%) said they never accessed the Internet from work.
No gender differences emerged in frequency of Internet access from work. It was not surprising, though, that the oldest aged groups were most likely to say they never used the Internet at work. The over 65s (78%) were most likely to say this, followed by a much smaller proportion of 55-64s (39%) and an even smaller proportion of under 55s (11%). Marital status also exhibited a link to work use of the Internet. Married respondents (22%) were more likely than single respondents (12%) or cohabiting respondents (8%) to say they had never used the Internet at work.
During the survey itself, more than one in two respondents (53%) said they were accessing the Internet from home, with more than four in ten (43%) reportedly doing so from work, and a tiny minority (3%) doing so from an Internet caf or from a friend’s home.
General Internet-related Activities
Respondents were questioned about general Internet-related activities. A list of 37 activities was provided and in each case respondents had to indicate whether they had done any of these things on the Internet in the past week, in the past month, in the past year, or whether they had never done these things online.
The activities most often endorsed as having been engaged in online during the previous week were:
* sending/reading e-mail (99%)
* getting news online (89%)
* doing job-related work (69%)
* looking for information linked to a hobby/interest (65%)
* looking for product-related information such as about books, toys, music (62%)
* going online just for fun or to pass time (59%)
* conducting personal banking online (49%)
* checking weather forecasts (39%)
* getting travel information about airline/hotel prices (34%)
* checking sports scores (31%)
* visiting central government web sites (30%)
* getting ideas for gifts to buy for Christmas for family/friends (27%)
Some age-related differences in nature of use of the Internet emerged. The under 34s (84%) were more likely than the either the 35-54s (69%) or the over 55s (49%) to have ever visited a web site associated with a television programme. While an overwhelming majority of under-55s (94%) said they had, at some time, done-related work online, fewer 55-64s (76%) said this, while much fewer respondents aged over 65 (47%) had reportedly ever done this. Instant messaging online was an activity most often associated with those aged 24 and under (70% had ever done this) and least often associated with the over-55s (46%). Yet there were no significant age differences in the extent to which respondents claimed to have sent online Christmas or birthday greetings to family members. The most likely users of adult web sites were respondents aged 35-44 years. This was the only age group for which the majority of respondents (53%) claimed ever to have visited one of these sites.
Single respondents (50%) and cohabiting respondents (45%) were much more likely than married respondents (30%) to say they had ever taken part in chat rooms online. Single respondents (61%) were also more likely than both married (42%) and cohabiting respondents (51%) to have ever sent instant messages to someone online at the same time. Despite the social usage of the Internet, only a minority overall used it to find a date. This use of the Internet was more prevalent among single respondents (18%) than among married respondents (3%), though cohabiting respondents were markedly more likely than their married counterparts to report having sought an online date (11%).
Purchasing via the Internet
There were signs that Internet users are using the Internet not only to get ideas about things to buy for themselves or for others, but also to make those actual purchases. For instance, eight in ten respondents (80%) had purchased a book online within the past year, with more than one in five (21%) saying they had done so within the previous week.
Again eight in ten respondents (80%) said that they had bought or made a reservation for travel online within the past year, with one in six (16%) claiming to have done so within the previous week.
More than one in two respondents (51%) said they had made online purchases of groceries or household items over the past year, with nine per cent reportedly having done this within the past week.
Interpersonal Communication and the Internet
The Internet was also used as a communications medium for keeping in touch with others, whether relatives, friends or strangers. More than one in ten respondents (11%) claimed to have used the Internet within the past year to find someone to date. Nearly one in four (24%) said they had used the Internet within the past year to meet new people and make new friends. Four in ten (40%) had, within the past year, taken part in “chat rooms” or online discussions with other people. Ethnic minority respondents (53%) were less likely to report joining in chat rooms than were Caucasian respondents (61%). More than one in two (51%) had, within the last year, sent “instant messages” to someone who’s online at the same time. Finally, seven in ten respondents had used the Internet at some point within the past year to send online Christmas or birthday greetings to family and friends. And, of course, as already noted above, nearly all respondents (99%+) had used the Internet for e-mail purposes.
Online Democracy
The government has announced ambitious plans to establish online access to central and local government universally by 2005. The current research indicates that Internet users in Britain are already making use of such online services. More than nine in ten respondents (91%) claimed to have visited a central government web site in the past year, with three in ten (30%) claiming to have done within the previous week. Eight in ten respondents (80%) had reportedly visited local government web sites for information about local public services during the past year, with one in five (20%) saying they had done this in the past week. A smaller proportion, but still over half of respondents (54%) claimed to have visited political party web sites in the past year, with one in ten (10%) saying they had done this in the past week.
Internet as Information Source
The evidence from this survey indicated clearly that the Internet is an important information for its users. Virtually all respondents (99%) had used the Internet to get news, and a significant majority (87%) had used it for weather reports. More than six in ten respondents (63%) had at some time checked online sports scores, and over nine in ten (95%) had accessed online travel information in the past year.
Male respondents (41%) were much more likely than female respondents (12%) to say they had checked sports scores on the Internet during the previous week. Female respondents (54%) were much more likely than males (28%) to say that this was something they never did. In addition, respondents with two or more children at home (40%) were more likely to have checked sports results on the web in the previous week than were either respondents with just one child at home (30%) or no children at home (29%).
On a more personal front, virtually all respondents (99%) had accessed online information relating to hobby or interest within the last year, and nearly six in ten (58%) had gone online at some point for housing information.
Underlining the growing importance of the Internet to consumers, most respondents (98%) had at some point in the previous year looked for product-related information online. Significantly, and probably linked to the proximity to Christmas, more than six in ten (62%) said they had looked for product-related information online within the past week.
Internet as Entertainment
The Internet is not just a source of information, it is also a source of entertainment for its converts. While relatively few respondents (9%) claimed to have watched a movie online, most (77%) had watched video clips online within the past year. Male respondents (24%) were more likely than female respondents (13%) to say they had watched a video clip online during the previous week.
In a hybrid entertainment-related informational application of the Internet, more than seven in ten respondents (72%) said they had visited web sites linked to TV shows within the previous 12 months.
At the more risque end of usage, nearly one in two respondents (47%) claimed to have visited an adult web site in the past year. Males (15%) were significantly more likely than females (1%) to say they had visited one of these sites in the past week. Female respondents (83%), meanwhile, were much more likely than male respondents (37%) to say they never visited adult web sites on the Internet.
Financial Usage
Some evidence emerged that many Internet users utilise online financial services. More than seven in ten respondents (71%) said they had conducted personal banking online in the past 12 months, with nearly one in two (49%) having done so within the previous week. Male respondents (53%) were somewhat more likely than female respondents to say they had conducted online banking during the past week. Only a minority (12%) had bought or sold stocks and shares online, however, over the previous year.
Downloading Content
The Internet is not just a source of online information and entertainment for live consumption. It provides users with access to content they can download for re-use. More than eight in ten respondents (81%) indicated that they had ever downloaded software online relating to music or digital photography. More than one in five (21%) said they had done this during the previous week. This recent activity was reportedly more prevalent among male respondents (26%) than female respondents (11%).
A clear majority of respondents (64%) also claimed ever to have downloaded other kinds of files such as games, video files or picture files. Far fewer respondents reported ever having downloaded movies (16%) or music recordings (38%), or to have shared files from their own computer such as music, video or picture files, or computer games with others online (30%). Male respondents (34%) were more likely ever to have engaged in file sharing online than were female respondents (22%).
Those activities most often endorsed as never having been done online were:
* watching a movie online (91%)
* finding someone to date (89%)
* playing a lottery or gambling online (89%)
* buying stocks and shares online (88%)
* downloading movies (86%)
* meeting new people or making new friends (76%)
* participating in online auctions (74%)
* getting photos developed/storing/displaying photos online (72%)
* sharing files from own computer (e.g., music, video, picture files) (70%)
* obtaining music recordings online (62%)
Internet and Use of Time
Survey respondents were asked whether using the Internet had changed the amount of time they spend on a variety of other activities. Had the Internet increased or decreased the amount of time spent on the listed activities? Eleven activities were presented in this context: working at the office, working at home, shopping in stores, commuting in traffic, reading newspapers, watching television, spending time with my family, thinking about what to buy people for Christmas, spending time with my friends, and attending social events and activities.
In terms of percentages of respondents saying that using the Internet had decreased the amount of time they spend on each of these activities, the ranking that emerged is as follows:
* watching television (42%)
* reading newspapers (36%)
* going around shops buying Christmas presents (34%)
* shopping in stores (33%)
* commuting in traffic (16%)
* working in the office (13%)
* thinking about what to buy people for Christmas (11%)
* spending time with my family (11%)
* working at home (6%)
* spending time with my friends (5%)
* attending social events and activities (5%)
Internet use appears, on the basis of this self-report evidence, to have had the greatest impact on watching television and reading newspapers. While the greatest proportion of respondents said that using the Internet had made no difference to time spent watching television (56%) or reading newspapers (50%), as the figures above show, significant minorities of respondents said that this new medium had led them to reduce the amount of time they spend consuming these two longer-established media.
The one major gender difference in relation to the reported impact of using the Internet on other activities emerged in relation to television viewing. Here, male respondents (47%) were more likely than female respondents (33%) to say that using the Internet had decreased the amount of time they watched television.
For most respondents, the Internet made no difference to the amount of time they spend working at the office (73%) or at home (54%). In regard to working at the office, the reported impact of the Internet was fairly evenly divided between those saying it had increased time spent at the office (14%) or decreased it (13%). Where a clearer impact was becoming established, however, was in respect of working from home. Here, many more respondents said that use of the Internet had resulted in increased amount of time spent working at home (40%) than decreased time working at home (6%). This finding probably also links with reports that the use of the Internet had decreased (16%) rather than increased (1%) time spent in traffic commuting. Number of children in the household was associated with the extent to which respondents claimed to have increased the amount of time they spend working at home. Respondents with two or more children at home (51%) were more likely than respondents with one child (41%) or no children at home (38%) to say that using the Internet had increased the time they spent working at home.
Respondents aged 25-44 (40%) were most likely to claim that using the Internet had decreased the amount of time they spent going round the shops buying Christmas presents, with the 45 and over age groups (30%) being less likely to admit to this change, and the under 24s (25%) least likely of all age groups to acknowledge this effect of the Internet.
The social impact of the Internet was marginal. Most respondents indicated that using the Internet had not changed the amount of time they spent with their family (86%) or friends (90%) or going to social events (89%).
The use of the Internet at Christmas for shopping and buying presents was in evidence. One in three respondents (33%) said the Internet had decreased amount of time spent shopping in stores, with few (4%) saying the Internet had increased store shopping time. Reinforcing this last finding, more than one in three respondents (34%) also said that using the Internet had decreased (compared with 2% saying increased) time spent going around shops buying Christmas presents. Opinions were more mixed on whether the Internet saved time thinking about what to buy people for Christmas, with 11 % saying it decreased time spent doing this and 13% saying it increased time spent on it.
Importance of Email to Its Users
Over nine in ten respondents (92%) claimed to have sent at least one email ‘yesterday’ (i.e., the day before the responded to the survey. One in four respondents (25%) claimed to have sent three to five emails, one in three (33%) said they had sent between six and 20 emails, and one in seven (14%) had reportedly sent 21 or more emails the previous day. Respondents aged 24 to 35 (44%) were most likely to have sent 11 or more emails during the previous day with youngest (18-24: 15%) and oldest (65+: 11%) being the least likely to have sent this many.
When asked how much they would miss using email if it was no longer available to them, three out of four respondents (76%) said they would miss it ‘a lot’. Most of the remaining respondents (17%) said they would miss email ‘quite a bit’.
In the past week, most respondents had emailed a friend (88%) or a relative (60%). This was comparable with telephoning a friend or relative (82%), or visiting with friends (73%), but compared favourably with visiting with family (50%), having friends over to my home (46%), and having family over to my home (28%). The oldest respondents were most likely to have emailed a member of their family in the past week. A clear majority of over 55s (77%) said they emailed a relative in the previous week, with younger age groups (56%) being much less likely to have done so.
Most respondents said they found email either very useful (42%) or quite useful (31%) for communicating with members of their family. Even more found email very useful (67%) for keeping in touch with friends, with many others (26%) finding it quite useful for this purpose. Older respondents aged 55+ (57%) were more likely than younger respondents (under 55: 38%) to say they found email ‘very useful’ for communicating with family members. For the youngest respondents, aged up to 35 (77%) email was ‘very useful’ for communicating with friends, with older respondents (61%) being somewhat less likely to say this.
Emailing Family
Respondents were asked to indicate which member of their immediate or extended family did they email most often. Just over one in ten (11%) claimed never to email family members. Among the remainder of the sample, the family members emailed most often were ranked as follows:
* sister (15%)
* brother (13%)
* wife (9%)
* mother (9%)
* daughter (8%)
* father (7%)
* son (7%)
* husband (5%)
* cousin (5%)
* niece/nephew (2%)
* in-law (2%)
* aunt/uncle (2%)
* grandchild (less than 1%)
* grandparent (less than 1%)
Emailing occurs most often between siblings (28%), followed by with parents (16%), and then with children (15%) and between spouses (15%).
When respondents were asked to provide further information about the person emailed most often in terms of where they lived, it became clear that this person tended to live at a location remote from the respondents. In nearly four in ten cases, this person lived in a different part of the country (39%) and in more than one in four cases (26%) overseas in a different country. It is interesting to note, nonetheless, that in nearly one in five cases (19%) the family member emailed most often lived in the respondent’s home and in a similar proportion of cases (17%) they lived in the same community or area.
The Internet may provide a substitute for face to face contact with the family member emailed most often. For most respondents (57%) they reported actually seeing this person just a few times a year or less often. At the other extreme, there are family members with whom regular face to face contact does not diminish emailing them too. In nearly one in five cases, respondents saw the family member they emailed most often every day. Significantly, the family member most often emailed may also be contacted by telephone fairly frequently too. In more than one in two cases (52%), this person is telephoned at least once a week.
Getting respondents to think further about the relative they most often emailed, they were also asked to indicate the kinds of things they emailed this person about in the past four weeks. Ten different reasons for emailing were provided. These are shown below in rank order according to how often they were selected by respondents. The relative most often emailed was contacted online in the past four weeks:
* to pass along something interesting you heard or read (76%)
* to pass along some news about yourself, family or people you know (73%)
* to pass along a joke or something funny you’ve heard (58%)
* to pass along something about your job/other things involved with (53%)
* about getting together for dinner or social activity (40%)
* to get advice about something (38%)
* to make arrangements for Christmas (35%)
* to tell them about something that has upset or worried you (32%)
* to find out what they want as a present for Christmas (25%)
* to wish them a merry Christmas (8%)
Thus, email is used primarily to pass along and share information with family, either about self, family matters or other things of mutual interest. It is still significant, however, that more than one in three respondents used email to make arrangements for Christmas and one in four used it to find out what the other person might want as a Christmas gift.
Some gender-related patterns of use emerged in relation to the Internet as a social activity. Female respondents were more likely than male respondents to say they emailed a family member in the past four weeks to pass along a joke or something funny they had heard (66% versus 54%), to tell them about something that had upset them (40% versus 27%), and to pass along something about their job or other things they had been involved in (59% versus 50%).
The youngest respondents, aged up to 35 (64%) were most likely to have used email in the past month to pass along a joke or funny story. Older age groups (52%) were somewhat less likely to use email for this purpose. The over 55s (14%) were twice as likely as the under 45s (7%) to report using email to wish a relative a merry Christmas.
Emailing Friends
Respondents were asked about emailing friends as well as family. When asked which of their friends they emailed most often – a friend who lives close by or one who lives far away, more than six in ten (62%) said they emailed a geographically remote friend.
In nearly six in ten cases (59%), the friend emailed most often lived either in another part of the country (30%) or in a different country (29%). In nearly four in ten cases (39%) the friend lived in the same community or area.
Emailing a friend was to some extent a substitute for seeing them face to face. It was also a partial substitute for telephoning them. In nearly six in ten cases (58%) the respondent saw their friend a few times a year at most. In one in two cases (50%), to one in eight cases did they see this friend (12%) or telephone them (14%) a few times a week or more.
Respondents were also asked to give the most usual reasons for emailing this friend. The same ten reasons were provided as for family members. Thus, over the previous four weeks, respondents claimed to have emailed their friend:
* to pass along something interesting they had heard or read (79%)
* to pass along news about yourself, family or people you know (76%)
* to pass along a joke or something funny you have heard (66%)
* to pass along something about your job/other things involved in (62%)
* about getting together for dinner or social activity (54%)
* to get advice about something (41%)
* to tell them about something that has upset or worried you (37%)
* to arrange to see them over Christmas (23%)
* to wish them a merry Christmas (13%)
* to find out what to buy them for Christmas (9%)
The pattern with emailing friends was similar to that for emailing family. Email is used mostly to pass along information and experiences of mutual interest. A few respondents did refer to using email to make Christmas arrangements with friends, but this form of communication was less popular in this context in relation to friends than in relation to family. As with emailing relatives, emailing friends exhibited a gender-related differences. Female respondents were more likely than male respondents to say they had emailed a friend in the past four weeks to tell them about something that had upset or worried them (47% versus 30%) and to pass along some news about themselves, their family or people they knew (85% versus 71%). Email is a medium for gossip.
The youngest respondents (18-34s: 67%) were most likely to use email to make social arrangements with friends. This age band was also most likely to have used email to pass along a joke to a friend (44%) or to gossip about work or other events in their lives (67%).
Single respondents (66%) and cohabiting respondents (63%) were more likely to use email for making social arrangements than were married respondents (43%). Single respondents (69%) and cohabiting respondents 65%) were also more likely to have emailed a friend in the past four weeks to pass along something about their job or other events in the lives than were married respondents (55%).
The Internet and Christmas Shopping
One of the principal themes of this survey was to find out the extent to which the Internet is used these days for Christmas shopping. To what extent do Internet users use it to get ideas for gifts and to make actual purchases?
To begin with the survey obtained some wider background from respondents about Christmas shopping. How many people did they have to buy presents for? Who were these people? How much money were they likely to spend on buying Christmas gifts?
More than one in three respondents (36%) said they had to buy Christmas gifts for 10 or more people. More than four in ten respondents (42%) had to buy gifts for between five and nine people, while just under one in five (19%) had to buy presents for four or fewer people. Just a few respondents (4%) said they had no one they needed to buy presents for. Female respondents (45%) were more likely than male respondents (31%) to say they had to buy Christmas gifts for ten or more people. Not surprisingly, respondents with either two or more (46%) children or one child in the home (43%) were more likely than respondents with no children living at home (33%) to say they had to buy Christmas gifts for ten or more people.
When asked which people Christmas gifts would have to purchased for, respondents answered:
* mother/father (19%)
* other relative (17%)
* friend (16%)
* spouse/partner (15%)
* son/daughter (11%)
* work colleague (6%)
* boyfriend/girlfriend (5%)
* grandparent (4%)
* grandchild (2%)
* other (5%)
In total, most respondents (62%) expected to spend between 100-500 buying Christmas presents, with one in seven (15%) expecting to spend more than this, and over one in five (22%) expecting to spend less. For most respondents (62%) the most expensive single gift they expected to buy would cost between 21-100, for one in six (16%) it was likely to cost 100-200, and for a small minority (7%) more than 200. For one in eight (12%) the most expensive gift was expected to cost no more than 20.
Whether or not respondents had children living at home with them made a difference to how much money they expected to spend on Christmas gifts in 2002. Respondents with two or more children at home (70%) or one child at home (67%) were more likely to say they would spend 200 or more on Christmas gifts as were respondents with no children living at home with them (47%).
Male respondents (5%) were two and a half times as likely as female respondents (2%) to say they would spend more than 1000 in total on buying Christmas gifts this year.
Married respondents (45%) were the most likely to say they expected to spend 300 or more on buying Christmas gifts, with cohabiting respondents (34%) and single respondents (14%) being progressively less likely to say they would spend this amount.
When asked whether they had used the Internet yet this year to find out information or get ideas about Christmas gifts, more than six in ten respondents (61%) said that they had done so. Among those (39%), who said they had not used the Internet in this way yet, between one in five and one in four (23%) said they expected to do so. Thus, among these Internet users, if they had not yet used the Internet to get Christmas gift ideas (during the first half of December), most (77%) were unlikely to do so.
When respondents were asked whether they had used the Internet to purchase any Christmas gifts this year, nearly six in ten (58%) said they had done so. Among those (42%) who had not done this, most (58%) said that they would do so eventually. Married (63%) and cohabiting respondents (63%) were more likely than single respondents (49%) to say they had used the Internet this year to purchase any Christmas gifts.
Among respondents who had decided no to purchase gifts on the Internet, they were asked to give reasons for not doing so. Eleven reasons were provided and respondents were invited to say how important each of these reasons was. In terms of percentages of respondents saying these reasons were ‘very important’, the findings revealed the following:
* I want to see the items I purchase (49%)
* I feel there are better ways to shop (32%)
* Don’t want to risk using my credit card online (19%)
* Not interested in shopping online (19%)
* Concerned about quality of merchandise (18%)
* Don’t have a credit card (9%)
* Not buying gifts this year (6%)
* Not comfortable using a computer or going to shopping web sites (5%)
* Don’t have time to shop online (3%)
* Tried shopping online and it didn’t work (3%)
* Don’t have easy access to the Internet (2%)
The findings indicate that among those respondents who had not purchased Christmas gifts online and did not intend doing so (17% of total sample), the main reasons given were the need still to see the merchandise and belief that offline shopping was a better way to shop. Female respondents (55%) were somewhat more likely than male respondents (45%) to say they wanted to see the items they purchase. A minority also exhibited some concern about credit card security and quality of the merchandise purchased online.
Respondents (58%) who said they had purchased Christmas gifts online were asked how many such gifts they had bought in this way. One in five (20%) said they had bought just one gift online, one in four (26%) has bought two gifts, over one in three (35%) had purchased between three and five gifts, and nearly one in five (19%) had purchased six or more gifts online. Respondents with two or more children living at home with them (29%) were the most likely to say they had bought six or more gifts online, compared with 23% of respondents with one child at home and 17% or respondents with no children living with them.
Among these respondents who had bought gifts online, more than half (57%) had spent between 21 and 100, just under one in five (18%) had spent 101-200, one in seven (15%) had spent over 200, and one in ten (10%) had spent up to 20. The same respondents were asked to say what kinds of gifts they had purchased online. The key findings were as follows:
* Books (26%)
* Computer products (8%)
* Children’s toys (8%)
* Clothing (7%)
* Hi-fi equipment (6%)
* Video games (5%)
* Small household appliances (toaster, kettle, blender, etc) (3%)
* Ornaments/objet d’arts (3%)
* Video camera (3%)
* Sports equipment (2%)
* Children’s games (2%)
* TV set/VCR (2%)
* Various other items – perfume/cosmetics, suitcases, jewelry, handbags, garden plants, garden ornaments, large household appliances (all under 2%)
Respondents with two or more children living at home were most likely to report buying children’s toys on the Internet, followed by respondents with one child at home (12%) and respondents with no children living with tem (6%). Married respondents (10%) were more likely than either single (5%) or cohabiting respondents (6%) to have children’s toys on the Internet.
Using the Internet to make these purchases did not cause respondents any discomfort. The great majority (86%) said they were very comfortable (34%) or quite comfortable (52%) giving their credit card details over the Internet. The over 65s (17%) were significantly less likely than average to say they felt very comfortable about giving their credit card details over the Internet.
Finally, all respondents were asked about the different ways in which they might communicate with others this Christmas. A clear majority, in each case, said they would mail letters or Christmas cards to family and friends (84%), phone a family member to talk about Christmas holiday plans and events (82%), and phone a friend to talk about Christmas related plans (77%). Hence all these Internet-linked respondents expected to use traditional forms of communication to reach out to family and friends at Christmas.
More than half (57%) also said they would send emails to family members to talk to them about Christmas events and to make plans, nearly one in two (49%) also said they would send a Christmas card by email. Interestingly, ethnic minority respondents (55%) were proportionately more likely to say they would send a Christmas card by email than were Caucasian respondents (48%). Finally, over four in ten (42%) said they would send an email to someone they had not spoken to for a long time to exchange Christmas greetings. Such findings indicate the growing significance of the Internet at Christmas time as a channel through which people can interact with those they haven’t seen in ages.
18 December 2002
Barrie Gunter is Professor of Journalism Studies, University of Sheffield and a member of the Internet and British Life Project team.
Copyright The British Life and Internet Project January 2003
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