New Zealand: Family Comes Second To Net
By Will Hine
New Zealand web users rate the internet as a more important source of information than their own friends and family, an international cybersafety conference in Queenstown was told yesterday.
The finding comes from a major 2007 World Internet Project study unveiled by Allan Bell, who led the study, in a presentation at the Netsafe ’08 conference.
The survey questioned 1529 New Zealanders about their usage of and attitudes towards the internet.
More than 75 percent of Kiwis were now online, the study found, with 61 percent of users declaring it would be a problem if access was taken away from them.
Mr Bell said 71 percent of users considered the internet to be an important source of information, while 56 percent said the same of friends and family.
Television and newspapers were rated as an important source of information by 52 percent of users.
"The internet has become Kiwis’ primary source of information, even more so than friends and family …
in a way that traditional media never did," Mr Bell said.
While researchers failed to identify a significant gender or geographic gap in the way the net was accessed, Mr Bell said there was a big socio-economic discrepancy.
"The big divider is income. If you’re from a low income (household), you’re much less likely to be online." Comparisons with overseas studies showed Kiwis were over-represented as bloggers but under-represented when it came to having access to high-speed internet, Mr Bell said.
Earlier, the three-day Netsafe ’08 conference opened with a poignant plea by two Auckland parents to restrict access to certain sites, after their daughter committed suicide using information off the internet.
Neville and Faye Gates related to a hushed audience how their daughter Alethea, 27, killed herself in January after reading a detailed how-to guide online.
Mr Gates told the audience authorities needed to introduce measures which would offer support to at-risk users if they tried to search for certain terms, such as "suicide" .
"I believe if the screen had been flooded with helpful sites … it would have diverted Alethea’s attention away from what she intended to do," Mr Gates said.
The Gates’ plea was followed by a short address by Marian Merritt, of Symantec, who said a recent study showed one in three Australian children surfed the web completely unsupervised.
KIWIS ON THE NET
- 78 percent of New Zealanders use the internet, 6 percent are ex-users and 16 percent have never tried it.
- 66 percent of home users have broadband access, 31 percent have dial-up access
- 53 percent of users bank online weekly
- 77 percent of users check their email every day 28 percent of participate in social networking via sites like Facebook and MySpace
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On the Net: