Overview

The status of the Internet is shifting from being the dazzling new thing to being a purposeful tool that Americans use to help them with some of life's important tasks. As Internet users gain experience online, they increasingly turn to the Internet to perform work-related tasks, to make purchases and do other financial transactions, to write emails with weighty and urgent content, and to seek information that is important to their everyday lives. Over the course of a year, people's use of the Internet gets more serious and functional. Internet users do more kinds of things online after they gain experience, especially related to their jobs, even as they spend a bit less time online during their typical sessions. These findings come from a survey conducted in March 2001 in which 1,501 people were re-interviewed from a March 2000 survey.