A 1999 study by Media Research Inc. has found that Internet use among American adults has risen sharply over the past year. The information was collected from an in-home survey of more than 25,000 consumers. The data measures the amount of Internet usage for an average thirty-day period.
More than 64 million adults, or about one-third of the population over age 18, are using the Internet at least once in an average month.
In a previous survey, from September 1997 to August 1998, 53.5 million American adults used the Internet at least once a month.
The number of American adults with access to the Internet has increased by 16.3 per cent to 83.7 million.
About 44.9 million people are estimated to have accessed the Internet from home, compared with 31.3 million from work over the course of the survey.
Men use the Internet slightly more than women ( 51.4 per cent of 64.2 million users versus 48.6 per cent.)
More than 53 million adults report having used an online service. America Online had the most users, at 28.6 million. MSN was second at 7.96 million, followed by CompuServe at 1.96 million and Prodigy at 1.93 million.
