In his new column, Jeffrey Cole of the Center for Digital Future explains why the differences between newbies and experienced Internet users have disappeared.
Sometime over the past year, a subtle but important development on the Internet began to emerge: For the first time the advantages of having Internet experience began to diminish and even disappear.
The old days
For the past five years we have been tracking Internet use, following the same non-users as they became dial-up and then broadband users. From the beginning we saw significant and pronounced differences between the newest users (who had just gone online) and the most experienced users (who had been online seven years or more). Those experience differences accounted for enormous differences in how often users went online and with what type of connection, how long they stayed connected, their attitudes towards the Internet and, most importantly, what they did while connected.
The most experienced users connected over twice as long as the newcomers and were far more likely to be connected through a high-speed connection. Long-time users also connected from more places, both inside and outside the home. The biggest differences, however, over four years was in what the new and experienced users did while connected. New users were much more likely to be looking at chat rooms, playing games and searching for entertainment information and -- most interesting to us -- searching for medical information. We were intrigued that medical searching seemed to be one of the heaviest uses by new Internet users: They seemed to have an unlimited curiosity about medical issues, issues about which, perhaps, they did not feel comfortable asking friends, parents or even physicians.
Over the years, experienced users were spending much more time than novices buying online, doing work related to their jobs and looking at news online. Fours years ago the average new Internet users did not make an online purchase until they had been online between 18 and 24 months. The most important factor accounting for this lag was fear about privacy and security, although other fears and concerns came into play. Prospective shoppers four years ago also did not buy online because they feared the product would not be delivered or would be delivered damaged. They were also concerned whether they could trust online descriptions of products. Overwhelmingly, they did not like the absence of live human beings in the buying process.
Today
Sometime in late 2003 or early 2004 everything began to change. Now the differences between new and experienced Internet users have almost disappeared. Although long-time users still connect longer, in most other areas the differences have flattened enormously. New users are only slightly more likely to be looking at chat rooms or playing games online, and they are just about as likely to be looking at news, entertainment information or doing work related to their jobs.
Shopping differences have shown immense change. Today, new users buy online almost from the day they get connected. Indeed, the desire to make an online purchase is one the most compelling factors causing non-users to get an Internet connection in the first place. The 18- to 24-month lag period is gone. Both Internet users and non-users believe that prices are lower online and that the availability of products is greater. Merchants successfully convinced many non-users to go online and start buying at lower prices. Recently, American Airlines exemplified this process by announcing a $5 service charge when buying airline tickets over the phone and a $10 charge in person, but no service charge when buying on the Internet.
While fears about privacy and security have not diminished over the years, they no longer serve as a barrier that prevents buying: People now buy in spite of the fears. Concerns about damaged products or misleading descriptions have also disappeared as actual buying experience has demonstrated there was little basis for the fears. And the most dramatic change: Lack of live humans in the buying process has been transformed from a liability to an asset. Now buyers report they don’t want to have to deal with a real person and prefer buying through a computer -- unless they experience a problem and need customer service.
What has caused the change?
The most likely cause four years ago for the vast differences in Internet use by experienced and new users was demographic differences. The earliest Internet users were much more likely to be white or Asian, highly educated, male and with higher incomes. They were also much more technologically inclined. Over the past four years, more and more of America has gone online, with the fastest growing groups being African-Americans and Latinos, females, lower income and those with less education.
Today, Internet users are no longer a subset of America as a whole. While many of the oldest Americans are still not online (an issue I'll return to in another column), Internet users as a group look like America. Demographic differences have largely disappeared.
Another important change is that new users go online knowing what to expect from the Internet having, in many cases, been online before with a friend’s or relative’s connection. The learning curve for online behavior is much shallower. New users know what to expect when they connect and now get down to business much faster than new users of several years ago. Four years ago new users did much more exploring and experimenting before getting down to business on the Internet. For many of the reasons stated above, now they get to business right away.
Already we have seen significant social and political trends emerge from just a decade of Internet use. Non-users and new users always had a sense that they were interlopers on the Internet controlled by so-called nerds, geeks and long-time users. As long as that perception continued, the Internet would be slow to become a fundamental part of daily life. More quickly than any other media, the Internet became so important and useful at so many different things that the new, non-geek users made it their own and felt comfortable on it in record time.
Dr. Jeffrey Cole is Director of the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future, the founder of the World Internet Project as well as iMedia's Research Editor-at-Large. Read his full bio here.