NEW YORK: The online world is just as important as the real world, feel a large portion of internet users in the United States. A study carried out by the University of Southern California-Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future for its sixth annual Digital Future project and survey found that 43 per cent of internet users who are members of online communities "feel as strongly" about their virtual community as their real world community.
The researchers came across views that the internet-based society had direct relevance to real world actions. At least 20 per cent of the online community members subscribe to this view.
Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future, said the internet is now truly emerging as the powerful personal and social phenomenon more than a decade after the net was thrown open to the public. The year 2006, he said, is the year in which new directions for the internet are growing fast and the community of surfers is what Americans use to "touch the world."
The survey also revealed that involvement of people in online activities like blogs and social networking is gaining prominence and these platforms are increasingly becoming instruments of personal engagements.
The survey had covered 2000 individuals.
It found that virtual friendship is not confined to the PC. On an average a surfer had met in person 1.6 of the friends he or she had got acquainted on the net. Nearly 40 per cent of the net users were using the web to stay in contact with people, and 37.7 per cent believed the internet was enabling them to communicate more with friends and family. Some 7.4 per cent kept a blog, which is double the figure in 2003 and the number of people uploading pictures online grew from 11 per cent in 2003 to 23.6 per cent now.
As many as 75 per cent of Americans are net users, spending an average of 8.9 hours online a week, the report said. And women equaled men in the use of net for the first time in 2006.
