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Analysis, Digital Inclusion, Education IT

Stark differences in New Zealanders' internet use

By Amelia Kwok | 17 December 2008

A major international survey of internet behaviour ranks New Zealand as a leader in its educational use of the internet.

World Internet Project (WIP) findings from 13 countries and regions worldwide released recently, has highlighted similarities alongside differences in the way New Zealanders use the internet.

New Zealand has the highest proportion of people using the internet for distance education at 21 per cent, and the second highest internet use at school with an average of 5.2 hours per week, second behind Australia.

But New Zealand ranked second lowest on broadband penetration with 65 per cent, ahead of only Colombia and equal to urban China, and is second highest in its reliance on dialup access.

Project Director Professor Allan Bell says the New Zealand WIP survey was conducted a year ago by Auckland University of Technology’s Institute of Culture, Discourse and Communication (ICDC) and is matched against 12 other countries.

The WIP findings cover Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Macao, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, United Kingdom and the US.

The WIP is a longitudinal study which aims to track internet trends and its impact around the world by surveying both users and non-users. Such findings enables cross-country comparisons of internet use, which is invaluable for establishing how New Zealand is positioned globally with new media technology.

While most people aged 18 and over in all of the WIP countries and regions except Hungary are current internet users, New Zealand and Canada have the highest overall proportions of internet users at 77 percent. The disparity between proportions of men and women using the internet was smallest in New Zealand, with only one per cent difference.

New Zealand has the highest proportion of people using online banking (56 per cent weekly) New Zealand ranks alongside Canada and the USA in having the highest frequency of email checking (over 80 per cent report daily or more frequent email checking)

The majority of users in most countries feel the internet does not impact on their face-to-face time with other people. However, more people perceive that the internet has decreased the amount of face-to-face time they spend with others, than perceive an increase in such contact. In New Zealand this concern is less extreme than in many countries, including Australia, Canada and the USA.

New Zealand has very similar profiles to other countries on downloading music and video, playing games online, attitudes towards the internet and government, attitudes towards television and radio, and reasons for not using the internet.

Bell says this pioneering report presents a great opportunity to understand where New Zealand stands on the world stage in terms of internet use.

“Such information is invaluable not only in assessing the social impact of the internet on the lives of New Zealanders, but also in identifying areas where we both excel and fall short. This may affect policies concerning the development of the internet whether related to business, education, culturally, socially or politically,” says Bell.

The WIP is funded through the National Library of New Zealand under the New Zealand Government’s Digital Strategy, and InternetNZ.

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