The 2007 Minnesota Internet Study is an annual statewide survey of Minnesota households conducted since 2001 by the Center to monitor the adoption, deployment and use of digital technologies throughout Minnesota. Originally designed to track the adoption of these technologies only in rural Minnesota, in 2005 it was expanded to include both rural Minnesota and the Twin Cities metro area.
In the 2007 study, data was collected from 757 phone surveys from the 80 counties in Greater Minnesota and 776 surveys from the seven-county Twin Cities area. The margin of error is ±3.5%.
Among the other findings in this year’s report:
- Computer and Internet adoption are picking up again. Since 2001, computer ownership and Internet adoption had stayed virtually flat. Both took a sudden leap in 2007, with computer ownership going from 68.7% of households statewide to 75.9% and Internet connections going from 63.5% to 71.5% of households statewide. The survey also found that 94.3% of households with computers are connected to the Internet.
- Age and income are still an issue. These two factors are still important indicators of who has computers, Internet and broadband. Older age groups and lower-income groups are still less likely to have computers, Internet and broadband, but they show continued growth in adoption each year.
- People with broadband are much more active online. People subscribing to broadband reported spending 17.4 hours a week online compared with 7 hours a week reported by dial-up users. More than ever this year, broadband users are more engaged in all kinds of activities online, from online purchases to news web sites to downloading music and video and working from home. When dial-up users were asked why they have not switched to broadband, approximately 38% said because it was too expensive. Among metro dial-up users, 8.8% said it was not available in their area, while 30.4% of rural dial-up users said the same. This figure, however, translates to just 6.6% of Greater Minnesota households. And 40% of dial-up users said they were not interested in switching.
“It’s no surprise broadband adoption has taken such a jump these last two years,” said Marnie Werner, research manager for the Center for Rural Policy and Development. “The hugely popular applications introduced in the last few years, like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, iTunes and online gaming, all require high-speed, high-capacity Internet service to be at all useful or fun. With everything we do continually shifting to the Internet – from communicating to banking, shopping, especially socializing – people who want to engage in these activities need broadband to keep up, and that’s driving demand.”
A copy of the full report can be downloaded by clicking here.
The Center for Rural Policy & Development is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan rural policy research center, dedicated to the study of the economic, social and cultural forces that impact rural Minnesotans and the communities they reside in.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Marnie Werner & Louis Hohlfeld
Quelle/Source: Center for Rural Policy and Development, 24.06.2008
