According to Pew, Internet users in the United States did not show the same type of promising, exponential growth this year as in prior years, although the integration of the Internet into everyday culture has never been more deeply rooted.
The Pew survey indicates that close to 126 million Americans, roughly 63 percent of adults, use the Internet regularly, and nearly a third of the people who access the web from home are using a high-speed connection.
Additionally, Internet users are doing more things online than ever before, although the rate of new growth has slowed significantly. There was almost no growth over the course of 2002 and there has been only a small uptick in recent months.
The number of American adults going online grew by 47 percent between Pew's March 2000 and August 2003 surveys. However, growth in Internet penetration was relatively flat over the course of 2002.
Pew found that email continues to take the lead as the most popular reason to use the Internet, and that Internet users overwhelmingly rely on email as their communication tool of choice. Statistically that boils down to more than nine in ten online Americans either sending or receiving email.
An estimated 102 million Americans were email users in December 2002, up 31 percent from 78 million in March 2000.
In comparison, about one-half of all Internet users have tried instant messaging and one-quarter has participated in chat rooms or online discussions. Pew states that instant messaging has grown by about 33 percent. The survey found that 39 million people had never tried IM by March 2000, compared to a leap to 52 million in the summer of 2002.
The number of people who have participated in chat rooms and online discussions increased by 21 percent.
"There is great fluidity in the Internet population," states Pew. "About a quarter of Americans live lives that are quite distant from the Internet – they have never been online, and don't know many others who use the Internet. At the same time, many Americans who do not use the Internet now were either users in the past or they live in homes with Internet connections."
Pew's August survey states that 87 percent of those users surveyed have access at home to the Internet and 48 percent have access at work. And by August 2003, 31 percent of Internet users that go online from home have broadband.
Internet adoption has increased in all demographic groups, but there are still pronounced gaps. Pew states that more than three-quarters of those between the ages of 12 and 17 use the Internet. U.S. Internet users are split 50/50 between male and female users and African Americans and senior citizens are still behind the curve when it comes to web access.
Survey results state that online news searches are being conducted by 50 percent more people than in March 2000, and that the use of the commercial side of the Internet has expanded dramatically in spite of the economic slump, says Pews.
And finally, the number of recreational users who say they sometimes go online for no particular reason has increased by 44 percent since March 2000.
These recreational users grew from 54 million in March 2000 to 78 million in January 2002.