An Online Majority

By Marisa Peacock | Published Nov 9, 2007

From the annals of News You Already Know comes two reports that shouldn't surprise you.

On Monday, Reuters reported that “four out of five U.S. adults” or “79 percent — about 178 million — go online” and spend an average of 11 hours a week on the Internet.

The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, also confirmed that “25 percent of adults who went online were between 18 and 29 years old”.

The poll, which surveyed 2,062 adults in July and October, found that the population online mirrored that of the general public. For example, Hispanics make up 13 percent of the online population, while nine percent of online users are 65 years old and older.

According to “analysts”, these results indicate a steady rise in access to the Internet. People are accessing the net from home, work, and “elsewhere” (which, as the study revealed, we can only imagine implies wireless and/or portable devices).

To piggy back on these results, the New York Times reported on Tuesday that “More Readers [are] Trading Newspapers for Web Sites.” Apparently, circulation of American newspapers is still declining.

Frankly, I didn't think the circulation numbers could go any lower, but it's true: sales across the newspaper industry fell almost 3 percent. The results were reported by Audit Bureau of Circulations and the overall drop “reflects the growing shift of readers to the Internet, where newspaper readership has climbed, and also a strategy by many major papers to shed unprofitable or marginally profitable print circulation”.

While I admit this is rather stale news, what is interesting is that this report includes the first numbers that reflect “the total number of readers, both in print and online, for more than 200 newspapers in their home markets”.

While it's exciting to continually gauge the decline of print and the success of the Internet, the questions that these articles fail to ask is “so what?” and “what next?”.

It boggles the mind as to why advertisers are so slow to notice the significance of online readers as the NYT article suggests. Let's force the issue of adapting to new media, instead of just reporting that it's in fact here.

Chances are, if nearly 80 percent of us are online, we already know.