There's a widely held perception out there that top executives are techno-phobes who rely on underlings to  do their computer work and surf the net.
    It may have once been true, but it is no longer.
    It turns out that this generation of top executives account for some of the most wired folks around, according to a new study.
     The study, conducted by Harris Interactive for The Wall Street Journal Online, reveals that 98 percent of top executives use a computer and have internet access at work.
   We’re not talking about those mythical, tattooed and pierced 24-year-old multimillionaire dot.com CEOs, either: Just 12 percent of the survey respondents worked for technology companies.
     "There does seem to be a perception that senior-level people are not as technologically advanced," says Neil Budde, editor and publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online. "The assumption is that they rely on assistants and others, and that the senior ranks are all in their 60s and just hoping they can retire before they have to worry about a computer."
    In fact, executives are spending 12 hours a week logged on, both at home and at work. About a third of their at-work computer time, which amounts to about eight hours a week total, is spent online.
    Ninety percent of the executives say that using the net keeps them up-to-date on business issues and makes them more productive at work.
    "When you step back and think that for this audience, news about their industry and about what’s going on in the business world is stock in trade, it’s not surprising that they would use every tool at their disposal to get to it," says Budde.
   Perhaps because they’re online so often, they’re using the web to communicate. Ninety-one percent of the executives surveyed use email.
    "The informality of email allows more people to feel like it’s OK to break down some of the chains of command, and reach out to other people within the organization," says Budde. "They also have access to more information, both internal and external information about what’s going on, and they can get it more readily. It’s not as filtered as it sometimes was in the past."
   When they’re online, slightly more than half of top executives visit industry news and information sites and search engines.
    More than half of the executives surveyed--56 percent--log on to read business news and content. Specifically, 52 percent go to industry news and information sites and 51 percent visit search engines. Forty-five percent peruse general business information news sites and 25 percent go online to research business opportunities.
    Much of the material they read online involves checking out the competition. Thirty-nine percent of the leaders surveyed reported that they use the web to learn about their rivals.
    About 90 percent of the executives have purchased goods online, and executives spend about 16 percent of their internet time on e-commerce sites.
    When the numbers of executives who report "often" or "sometimes" using the web for those reasons are factored in, those percentages jump markedly: 98 percent use email, 86 percent seek business news or content; 79 percent research the competition, and 58 percent seek business opportunities. Eighty-seven percent visit industry news and information sites; 88 percent use search engines; 81 percent visit general business news sites, and 67 percent use e-commerce or shopping sites.
    Executives stay wired when they’re not sitting in their corner offices. Seventy-three percent use cell phones, 36 percent use Palm Pilots or another brand of personal digital assistant, and 24 percent have pagers.
    Instant messaging has not made deep inroads into executive suites--just 10 percent of the survey respondents use wireless messaging. Not many executives have wireless internet access, either--nine percent, roughly the same as wireless penetration among the U.S. population at large.
    The Wall Street Journal Online had Harris Interactive poll 399 top executives at the 1,000 biggest companies in the U.S. Ninety-five percent of respondents work at companies with annual revenues that exceed $1 billion. The executives were surveyed from Oct. 3 through Dec. 4, 2000.

-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.

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