Norton Online Living Report: scary stats for parents; social networking strong

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 16 February 2008 15:39

Your IT - Home IT

Symantec’s NOLR report provides details on Internet use in a number of areas across eight countries.

Taken directly from Symantec’s summary of key findings, we’ve seen the results for communication, socialising and living. Following are the details on informing, buying and banking.

Informing:

- 96 percent of online children in Australia get information from school projects via the Internet
- Germany, France and China have 93 percent of online children researching via the Internet
- The Internet exceeds the offline world as a source of key information about the world we live in
- Most online adults spend at least one hour per month both reading news from online sites/blogs and from a print outlet
- Online beauty and fashion advice has become popular globally with between 3 to 4 out of 10 online users seeking advice

Buying:

- 76 percent of online adults surveyed from Australia had purchased something online at some point
- Global users have a high degree of confidence making purchases online, with almost all online users (especially in the UK) shopping online at least sometimes
- Half of all global online users feel confident shopping online
- The U.S. has the highest level of confidence among users, with 63 percent, and Japan has the lower amount of confidence among users, with just 33 percent. Australian confidence sits at 55 percent
- Approximately one in three online Australian adults feel confident sharing personal information when shopping online
- 49 percent of users in China feel confident sharing personal information, while Japan users are the most hesitant with just 18 percent of users

Banking:

- 81 percent of online adults in Australia use the Internet to bank or pay bills online
- China has the highest number of users with 87 percent, the U.S. has 79 percent of users
- Personal finance falls behind commerce as a standard Internet activity, but the majority of global online users have handled some of their most basic financial transactions online

Please read onto page 5.