Time Spent Online Linked to Overall Happiness

With much recent maligning of the Internet by the media as a time-waster and possible source of addiction, new data emerges from the United Kingdom that suggests that time spent online may actually have benefits that far outweigh the drawbacks.   In fact, surfing the web may actually help certain demographics of Internet users to improve their quality of life and actually increase feelings of happiness.

Researchers from the United Kingdom’s Chartered Institute of IT (called “BCS”) have analyzed data gathered from 35,000 people around the world as part of a new study on Internet usage.  Compared in the study were demographical indicators of gender, income and economic values, and the data collected by The Trajectory Partnership covered a wide span of social classes and income levels worldwide.

It was determined by the study’s researchers that gender and income were two powerful factors in establishing the amount of general satisfaction that Internet users report associating with their time spent online.  Women, in particular seem to report a higher happiness effect due to Internet usage.  Researchers concluded that women’s typical role as chief organizer of the home draws them toward the Internet’s many timesaving and life-simplification tools.  In addition, women are reportedly drawn to social networking sites and forums where they can connect with others.  With the availability of so many Internet applications that benefit women’s roles and engage their social nature, they naturally report greater feelings of satisfaction with Internet usage.

The BCS research also determined that the availability of the Internet in economically disadvantaged areas contributes to feelings of happiness for users there, as well.  Essentially linked to the sense of control, security, freedom and ability to influence others that it offers, the Internet provides an improvement in the quality of life for lower income users.  “If you introduce a technology [to the developing world], whether it is the Internet or the cell phone, that allows people to reduce their very high [constraints] of getting through daily life and it has a tremendous well-being affect,” reports Carol Graham, chair of foreign policy studies at the Brooks Institute in Washington, D.C.

Considering the evidence linking income levels and gender to positive feelings toward Internet usage, researchers naturally identified women in poorer communities or of developing countries as the demographic most positively impacted by Internet usage.  Graham credits the Internet’s popularity with economically disadvantaged women based on the access to the outside world that it allows, and the ease with which these women are able to establish and maintain friendships.

The BCS hopes this new body of research will expose the need for Internet technology to spread to previously untouched parts of the world, particularly to poorer areas that clearly could benefit from the many advantages the Internet offers.