With Internet penetration now at about half of all Americans, new users will be coming online for some time into the future, while the Internet itself continues to evolve.\u00a0 Tomorrow\u2019s new user will not be like today\u2019s, just as today\u2019s new user differs from yesterday\u2019s.\u00a0 This paper compares new users surveyed in a March 2000 poll to those from a November 1998 poll, and it examines what types of activities people pursue online in the two time periods.<\/p>\n\n
In exploring the characteristics and usage habits of new Internet users, this paper finds that the most enthusiastic new Internet users are women, and that this group feels most comfortable engaging in fun activities online (e.g., playing games, listening to music).\u00a0 Relative to long-time users, this group is reluctant to conduct financial or commercial transactions over the Internet.\u00a0 Additionally, people\u2019s willingness to engage in transactions online is found to be a significant threshold point for online activities; once new users who have chosen to make an online transaction, their Internet usage patterns are similar to more experienced users.\u00a0 Finally, new users today are different from new users of two years ago; in 1998, new users quickly engaged in fun activities, but used the Internet as an information utility to a greater extent than their 2000 counterparts.<\/p>\n\n
A likely explanation for new users\u2019 reluctance to conduct transactions online is worry over the security and privacy of sending credit card information over the Internet.\u00a0 New users are almost twice as likely as veteran Internet users to report high levels of concern over online credit card theft, but they are only half as likely as Internet veterans to have purchased something online.\u00a0 New users\u2019 quick embrace of fun activities suggests that they value a choice of a wide variety of Internet content as they learn to use the Internet.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This report looks at how new Internet users behave online at two points along the Internet\u2019s diffusion curve, one in November 1998 and the other in March 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_crdt_document":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[{"key":"_migrate_0","postId":97631}],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"bylines":[{"key":"94f4808dcb9fe9059d8c0ea8778cdaa8","termId":883}],"acknowledgements":[],"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[272,279,305,110,271],"tags":[2255,2299,2305],"bylines":[883],"collection":[],"datasets":[1994],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[526],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-97621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital-divide","category-online-privacy-security","category-platforms-services","category-privacy-rights","category-technology-adoption","tag-digital-divide","tag-generations","tag-women-and-men","bylines-john-b-horrigan","datasets-april-2000-survey-data","formats-report","research-teams-internet"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":309,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2000\/09\/25\/new-internet-users\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[{"id":97621,"title":"New Internet Users","slug":"new-internet-users","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2000\/09\/25\/new-internet-users\/","is_active":true},{"id":97631,"title":"Main Report","slug":"main-report-26","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2000\/09\/25\/main-report-26\/","is_active":false}],"report_materials":"","report_pagination":{"current_post":{"id":97621,"title":"New Internet Users","slug":"new-internet-users","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2000\/09\/25\/new-internet-users\/","is_active":true,"page_num":1},"next_post":{"id":97631,"title":"Main Report","slug":"main-report-26","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2000\/09\/25\/main-report-26\/","is_active":false,"page_num":2},"previous_post":null,"pagination_items":[{"id":97621,"title":"New Internet Users","slug":"new-internet-users","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2000\/09\/25\/new-internet-users\/","is_active":true,"page_num":1},{"id":97631,"title":"Main Report","slug":"main-report-26","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2000\/09\/25\/main-report-26\/","is_active":false,"page_num":2}]},"parent_info":{"parent_title":"New Internet Users","parent_id":97621},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[{"key":"_migrate_0","postId":97631}],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"New Internet Users","description":"This report looks at how new Internet users behave online at two points along the Internet\u2019s diffusion curve, one in November 1998 and the other in March 2000.","og_title":"New Internet Users","og_description":"This report looks at how new Internet users behave online at two points along the Internet\u2019s diffusion curve, one in November 1998 and the other in March 2000.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{"prc-image-alt-text":{"status":"complete","message":"No image blocks in content.","data":null},"prc-about-this-research":{"status":"incomplete","message":"Add an \"About this research\" details block.","data":null},"prc-paragraph-count":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 3 paragraphs.","data":{"count":3}},"prc-internal-link":{"status":"incomplete","message":"Add at least one internal link.","data":{"count":0}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"94f4808dcb9fe9059d8c0ea8778cdaa8","termId":883}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138353,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97621\/revisions\/138353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"level_of_effort","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/level_of_effort?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"primary_audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/primary_audience?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"information_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/information_type?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=97621"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=97621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}