People with WiFi spend more time online (Ars Technica)
A recent Pew report finds that home WiFi users surf the Internet more and also differently. This shouldn’t come as a suprise — especially to any self-reflective Internet user who has gone through the broadband to WiFi progression themselves. The report finds that wireless users check e-mail more (72% vs 63%) and news more (46% vs 38%) than typical broadband users.
This scratches the surface of what I have suspected for some time: as your Internet access capability changes, your whole conception of “being online” changes too. To be specific–I would argue that this goes far beyond just being “online more.” Instead, I would argue that the Internet becomes more tightly integrated with countless aspects of life. The ease in which one can search for information on Wikipedia, find a recipe, or now even watch an interesting video transforms the online experience into something far more intimate than a walk to the computer room to check e-mail and news.
Naturally, these are only my own speculations. Hopefully future Pew reports will delve deeper into how individuals experience being online. Perhaps getting beyond type and quantity of use is something that’s ill-fit to survey analysis.
Here’s a link to the full report.