Despite the dot-com demise, going online is now a mainstream activity in American life that continues to spread among people across all age groups, education levels and incomes, according to UCLA's year-to-year report on the impact of the Internet.

However, the national study, released Nov. 29, also found that enthusiasm for e-commerce is down, and broad concerns remain about Internet privacy and security. Furthermore, researchers found that television is the primary victim of increasing Internet use.

"Despite the dot-com meltdown, we found that the Internet is more vigorous than ever, a large majority of Americans go online, Internet use continues to increase and growing numbers of non-users expect to go online in the next year," said Jeff Cole, director of the Center for Communication Policy, a research unit in The Anderson School that is also affiliated with the College of Letters and Science.

The 2001 UCLA Internet Report, "Surveying the Digital Future," explores the impact of the Internet using a national sample of 2,006 Internet users and non-users. Researchers also drew comparisons between new users with less than one year's experience online and very experienced users with five or more years.

Among the 100-plus major findings are:

• More Americans have online access, up from 66.9% in 2000 to 72.3% in 2001, and are online more, up from an average of 9.4 hours to 9.8 hours per week.
• Internet users watch 4.5 hours per week less television than non-users. And television viewing decreases as Internet experience increases.
• Concerns about the security of credit card information are heightened among new users (98.6%) as well as very experienced users (89.1%).
• Online purchasing in general continues to be strong: 48.9% of Internet users made a purchase online in 2001, down slightly from 50.7% the previous year.

The project is supported by public foundations and private companies, including the National Science Foundation, America Online, Microsoft, Disney, Sony, Verizon, Pacific Bell, DirecTV, Merrill Lynch and the National Cable Television Association.

To view the full report, visit www.ccp.ucla.edu.