The report notes that surveys by the Pew Internet Project show college students are much more likely than other online Americans to use instant messaging, download music files, share music files from their hard drive, and browse the online world just for fun. They also use the Web and email to get assignments from professors, form virtual study groups, plan term projects, discuss their grades with their teachers, and even to see if the materials they want at the college library are available.

“Today’s college students were born around the time the first PCs were introduced to the public and they have grown up with these technologies,” said Prof. Steve Jones, lead author of the study and head of the department of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “To them, the Internet and email are as commonplace as telephones and television – and equally as indispensable.”

Other findings of the report include these:

“The students made clear that the Internet is the information cornerstone of their lives – not just on school projects but on every subject that matters to them,” said Jones. “The reason we care is that these students will be taking their online habits and expectations into their lives after college and that will likely lead to significant changes in work and leisure.”

Professor Jones is a senior research fellow at the Pew Internet & American Life Project and a co-founder of the Association of Internet Researchers.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization fully funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts to examine how Internet use affects families, communities, health care, education, civic/political life, and the work place.