[Air-l] research on internet adoption

[Lee Rainie]

I am looking for help locating research about why people were drawn to
the internet in various periods, starting in the early 1990s. There
seems to be a decent amount of work focused on why firms large and small
embraced the internet, but not nearly as many studies about individual
users and their motives for going online in the first place. I am
particularly interested in the role that life circumstances played (e.g.
Did users embrace the internet first at their workplaces or schools and
then in their private lives? Were they coaxed online by friends who
already had access?). And I'm interested in research about the online
applications that were particularly appealing to newbies (e.g. email,
news, health information, e-commerce, adult content, etc.). 

 

Finally, I'd appreciate knowing if new users' motives for adoption
changed over time. Were those who first hopped online in 1997 drawn
online by different factors from those that drew earlier adopters in,
say, 1993-1994?

 

Thanks very much,

Lee Rainie

 

**********

Director

Pew Internet & American Life Project

1615 L Street NW - Suite 700

Washington, D.C. 20036

202-419-4510

http://www.pewinternet.org