INTERNET STUDY

Data on Internet Use

©1997 CMHC

The results of our UT questionnaire on students' Internet use have been tallied. Results are listed below:

We received 531 completed questionnaires from UT students (out of 1005 sent) in the Spring '96. Thanks to all of you who completed questionnaires!

Out of the 531 students who returned questionnaires, 387 (73%) use the Internet at least once a week, on average. The weekly Internet users are almost equally distributed between men (53%) and women (47%), as compared to other studies which found significantly more men than women online. In addition, the distribution of the ethnicities of our weekly Internet users is similar to that found in the U.T. student population overall (weekly users: 68% Caucasian, 10% Hispanic, 10% Asian American, 2% African American, and 10% foreign students).

The average amount of time spent on line is 8 hours per week. However, the hours online per week vary greatly, from a meager half an hour to a grand total of 54 hours per week. (Wow! Do those people sleep?)

The favorite online services (with over 50% endorsement) are e-mail, the World Wide Web, and the Library (no surprises here). According to students who use the Internet weekly: 37% frequent newsgroups, 9 % chat in chat rooms, and less than 2% play with multi-user dungeons.

Students' most common reasons for using the Internet are for academic work and to maintain relationships. In addition, 35% of the students indicate an interest in meeting new people online and 21% use the Internet to experiment with their personality or social relationships.

We were concerned to discover a group of students who fit the category of "Internet dependent." That is, 13% of the weekly Internet users report significant symptoms of dependency on Internet use (similar to symptoms found in substance abuse and gambling) such as excessive use, failure to fulfill major responsibilities due to Internet use, continued use despite problems related to Internet use, lack of control over use, and withdrawal or tolerance symptoms. The good news is that most of the 'dependent' students expressed an interest in seeking support or treatment to manage their time online.

We would love to hear from you personally. Please send us your comments, suggestions or random thoughts (hours online, etc). You can e-mail Jane Bost, Associate Director, CMHC, at jbost@mail.utexas.edu.

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO HELPED TO MAKE THE QUESTIONNAIRE A SUCCESS!