MOSCOW, September 17, 2009. Russians Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the data describing how many Russians use Internet, how often and what for they use the World Wide Web, and which Internet Services Russians prefer.
The daily Internet users are increasing year after year. As before, every third Russian use Internet (32%), but compared with 2006 the amount of Russians who use Internet every day has risen three times (from 5 to 15% respectively). Eight percent use Internet several times per week, 6% - several times per month, and finally 3% - not less than ones per half a year. Over the recent year the share of Russians who do not need Internet has stayed at the same level (69%).
Portrait of a typical daily internet user: inhabitant of North-Western Federal District (27%), Moscow, St.Petersburg or other big cities (22-25%), male (17%), aged 18-24 (36%), with high level of education and income(28 and 22% respectively), and student (47%). Those who do not use Internet are mostly residents of the Volga District and Urals (75 and 72% respectively), rural area residents (81%), women (71%), elderly persons (97%), respondents with low level of education (97%) and with low level of income (84%), as well as pensioners and unqualified personnel (97 and 95% respectively).
Internet users turn to the World Wide Web to get necessary information, to expand horizons (41%), and to communicate (38%).In 23% of cases Internet is used for work; 14% (for each) follow news, events and weather forecasts and spend their leisure time on the internet; 12% use it for studying; 9% - for "correspondence". Rarer users shop online and kill time on the internet (2 and 1% respectively).
Respondents aged 18-24 often use internet for communications (46%), studying (27%) and entertainment (19%). Elderly respondents seek information on the Internet (80%), try to keep abreast of all development (20%), use Internet for earnings (30%) or kill time (10%).
The most popular internet services among Russians are email and social networking - 79 and 76% respectively. Less popular services are instant messaging (53%), forums (49%) and chats (43%). Rarer Russians use IP-telephony and blogging (33 and 28% respectively).
The initiative Russian opinion polls were conducted on September 5-6, 2009.
1600 respondents were interviewed at 140 sampling points in 42 regions of Russia.
The margin of error does not exceed 3.4%.
Do you use Internet? If yes, how often? (close-ended question, one answer) | |||
| September 2006 | September 2008 | September 2009 |
Almost every day | 5 | 11 | 15 |
Several times per week | 8 | 9 | 8 |
Several times per month | 6 | 7 | 6 |
From time to time, but not less than once per half a year | 4 | 3 | 3 |
I do not use Internet | 76 | 69 | 69 |
Hard to tell | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Why do you use Internet? (open-ended question, any number of answers, % of those who use Internet) | |
Getting information, expanding horizons | 41 |
Communicating | 38 |
Work, earning | 23 |
Keeping abreast of all developments, following news, events, weather forecasts | 14 |
Entertainment, leisure | 14 |
Studying | 12 |
Internet "correspondence" | 9 |
Online shopping | 2 |
Killing time | 1 |
Other | 3 |
Hard to tell | 5 |
Which Internet services do you use? (close-ended question, one answer per each position, % of those who use Internet)) | ||||||||
| forums | chats | Social networks («Odnoklassniki», «Vkontakte», «Facebook») | Instant messaging (ICQ, qip, Skype, MSN messenger) | IP-telephony (Skype, ICQ and others) | Blogs | Other | |
Almost every day | 34 | 12 | 12 | 26 | 23 | 12 | 6 | 34 |
Several times per week | 25 | 13 | 12 | 24 | 15 | 7 | 6 | 32 |
Several times per month | 13 | 15 | 10 | 18 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 25 |
From time to time, but not less than once per half a year | 7 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 |
I do not use Internet | 19 | 46 | 53 | 22 | 41 | 56 | 58 | 34 |
Hard to tell | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 8 | 0 |
Almost every day | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 2 |
Note: Using materials from the site www.wciom.ru or www.wciom.com, as well as distributed by VCIOM,
the reference to the source (or hyperlink for the electronic media) is obligatory!