eMarketer reports on how and when college students use the internet.

It is no revelation that college students love technology. Technology forms the foundation for their interactions, their ability to join and form networks, their means of connecting with people and with brands. Visit any college campus today and it is everywhere.

At the food court in the basement of the University of Washington's Husky Union Building in Seattle, TVs blare in every corner. It is 11 AM on a rainy January day and the local news is on. No one pays any attention. Students, mostly in pairs, talk or study, mobile phones in full view on the table. At a tall table, one female student sits with a grande coffee cup, talking on a mobile phone. Later, she taps furiously on the phone's keypad. At another table, a male student in a purple Huskies sweatshirt holds a soda cup with one hand and taps, with the other hand, on his mobile phone keypad.

At colleges across the United States, this scene is played out every day. Technology cuts a wide swath across campus, both inside and outside the classroom, and students are taking full advantage.

Students easily surpass adults in internet use, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 14.9 million internet users in college as of 2003, the most recent year for which data is available. The Census Bureau did not break out use by status, such as full-time, part-time, undergraduate or graduate student. Nearly 90 percent of students used the internet from home, while 68 percent used it at school.

Using a different methodology that measures internet activity among full-time students and those who live in residences headed by a full-time student, comScore Media Metrix reports that there were 14.3 million internet users in university locations as of December 2005, up 10 percent from December 2004.

University users make up 8.4 percent of the total U.S. internet population, according to comScore Media Metrix. (The home, work and university figures add up to more than the total because of overlap between the home and work audience.)

College students are more voracious internet users than the adult population as a whole. They are particularly heavy users of activities related to communication. According to Simmons Market Research Bureau, 73 percent of college students used email in 30 days before their survey in December 2005, compared with 51 percent of adults. Instant messaging was used at triple the rate of adults.

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