Americans think email is just dandy

Americans think
email is just dandy

Study: 97% of users say it's improved their lives

By Marty Beard

   In the early 1980s, "I want my MTV" became a rallying cry for a generation that sought to steep itself in the new medium of the music video.
   These days the rallying cry sounds more like "I want my email." According to a recent Gallup Poll, 90 percent of email users think that email and the internet have made their lives better.
   "Overwhelmingly, nine out of 10 of our sample of email users said that both email and the internet have made their lives better and not worse," says Frank Newport, Gallup’s editor in chief.
   "That’s good news for those who are proponents or who are involved, business-wise, with email and the internet."
    Ninety-seven percent of email users think that email has improved their lives, and 96 percent of them think that the internet has done so, according to the study.
    Seventeen percent of email users spend five to six hours online each week. One in eight email users devotes more than 20 hours a week to email, and 37 percent say they spend more than 10 hours a week using email.
    At-home and at-work email use is widespread. Eighty-three percent of email users have email at work, and nine of 10 have it at home. Fifty-three percent of email users use email both at home and at work.
    Age and gender also affect the way people use email and the internet.
    Most adult internet users are indifferent to instant messaging. Fifty-eight percent of adults reported that they never use instant messaging, which is primarily the domain of teenagers. Just 2 percent of adults say they use instant messaging services more often than they use email.
    Women like their email more than men do and are more likely to use it to communicate with family and friends than business associates, unlike men. Sixty-one percent of women reported that email is the activity that takes up most of their online time.
    In contrast, 44 percent of men say that email is their dominant online activity, and 52 percent of all email users report that email is the activity they participate in most when they’re online.
    According to the poll, email has changed the way that people use other communications media.
    Thirty-four percent of respondents report that their use of email has decreased their use of the telephone. Eighteen percent say they use the telephone a great deal less, thanks to email.
    Twenty-eight percent report using U.S. mail somewhat less, and 19 percent say that email has caused them to use U.S. mail a great deal less.
    At the same time, email users are unwilling to hang up the phone.
    Asked which communication technology they’d be the least willing to renounce, 63 percent of email users named the telephone. Fifteen percent said they’d be least willing to give up snail mail, 12 percent said email and 10 percent said cell phones.
    In contrast, 55 percent of email users say they would be willing to sacrifice their mobile phones; 21 percent say they’d be willing to give up their snail mail, 16 percent say they’d be willing to give up their email, and just 7 percent would be willing to get rid of their telephones.
    Sixty-nine percent of women say they are unwilling to give up the telephone, versus 58 percent of men. But 15 percent of men aren’t willing to give up email, versus 8 percent of women.
    "While I would say that people are very positive about the internet and email, which means this is an appropriate medium for marketers to use, there is something about the spoken word, telephone and otherwise, that people like," Newport says.
    He suggests that interactive marketing will go to a new level once technology can incorporate voice.
    And speaking of marketing, many poll respondents reported an outright hatred of unsolicited marketing emails, a.k.a. spam.
    Forty-two percent of email users say they "hate" spam. Forty-five percent find it annoying, but don’t hate it outright; 9 percent don’t care either way, and 4 percent find the messages contained in spam to be useful.
    Sixty-seven percent of email users between the ages of 18 and 29 report hating spam, compared to 26 percent of adults ages 50 or above and 43 percent of adults ages 30 to 49.
    But email users hate pop-up ads more than spam. Sixty-five percent of email users, consistent across all age groups and both sexes, report finding pop-up ads more irritating than spam.
    "Those marketers--we won’t mention names--of a certain tiny little video camera company that has sponsored pop-up ads have got to realize that the internet public finds them quite annoying," Newport says.
   The poll of 391 email-using adults was carried out online June 14 through June 25.

Most frequent online activities
	Email (%)	Search for info. (%)	Make transactions (%)	Instant messaging (%)	Other (%)
Men	44	39	6	2	9
Women	66	23	2	2	12
Overall	52	32	4	2	10
Source: Gallup Poll

Whom do you email most often?
	Business associate	Family member	Friend
Men	44	29	27
Women	32	38	30
Overall	39	33	28
Source: Gallup Poll

How often do you check your email?
	At home	At work
Continuously	3	32
Once per hour	3	19
Twice a day	30	33
Once a day	41	11
Less often	22	5
Source: Gallup Poll

Time spent online
No. hours	Percentage of email users
<1	2
1-2	8
3-4	13
5-6	17
7-8	12
9-10	11
11-15	12
16-20	12
>20	13
Source: Gallup Poll

-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.

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