John Suler, Ph.D. |
Internet Demographics
By John Suler, Ph.D.
(Page 15 of 53)
“Just the Facts”
Ed Katkin, my advisor in graduate school, used to say that there are two types of researchers: lumpers and splitters. Lumpers look for universal rules and valid generalizations about human behavior. Splitters are more interested in studying how individuals differ from each other. Many of the discussions in this hypertext book The Psychology of Cyberspace comes from the splitter's perspective. Much of it is based on psychological theory and conceptualization. Sometimes, however, it's nice just to have the hardcore facts about the people who inhabit the internet! The statistics below are Nielsen/NetRatings from a story in Internet World and were reported by John Grohol to the Psychology of the Internet mailing list. It's been a few years since I first posted these stats here in The Psychology of Cyberspace, so they are dated now. I hope to update them soon (if anyone has seen recent stats, please let me know!). Nevertheless, even this old data raises important questions about how demographic factors might influence the social dynamics of cyberspace, as well as how cyberspace reflects the global culture. You can read the statistics for yourself and come to your own conclusions. Here and there, as indicated by the links, I've taken the liberty of adding my 2 cents (these pop-up windows may not work with all browsers). Whenever we evaluate statistics like these, we should keep in mind the problem of “sampling bias” - i.e., did the survey method result in a sample that is an accurate representation of all people on the internet? Mark Twain once said, “There are three types of lies: lies, damned lies.... and statistics.”
| Number of Americans Online: | 76 million | Male: 52.7% |
| Total people worldwide: | 149 million | Female: 47.3% |
| Age: |
| 0-17 | 19.1% |
| 18-24 | 11.3% |
| 25-34 | 19.1% |
| 35-44 | 23.0% |
| 45-54 | 17.2% |
| 55-64 | 6.7% |
| 65+ | 3.7% |
|
Income: |
| $0-25k | 6.4% |
| $25-50k | 25.8% |
| $50-75k | 28.6% |
| $75-100k | 17.5% |
| $100-150k | 10.4% |
| $150-$1m | 4.9% |
| No response | 6.4% |
| Education: |
| Grammar school | 1.5% |
| Some H.S. | 5.7% |
| H.S. graduate | 18.8% |
| Some college | 20.9% |
| Associate degree | 9.5% |
| Bachelor's degree | 25.1% |
| Post-graduate degree | 16.9% |
| No response | 1.6% |
| Race: |
| White | 83.5% |
| African-American | 8.0% |
| Asian | 2.1% |
| American Indian | 1.0% |
| Other | 4.0% |
| No response | 1.9% |
| Geography: |
| North American | 55.5% |
| Western Europe | 23.3% |
| Asia Pacific | 15.5% |
| Eastern Europe/Russia | 2.0% |
| Latin America | 1.8% |
| Middle East/Africa | 1.9% |
Tags: Internet Psychology
About the Author John Suler, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at Rider University. This article comes from his online hypertext book The Psychology of Cyberspace which describes his ongoing research on how individuals and groups behave in cyberspace. His work has been reported by national and international media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, and CNN. www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/ More by John Suler, Ph.D.
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