Ed Katkin, my advisor in graduate school, used to say
that there are two types of researchers: lumpers and splitters. Lumpers
look for universal rules and valid generalizations about human behavior.
Splitters are more interested in studying how individuals differ from
each other. Many of the discussions in this hypertext book
The
Psychology of Cyberspace comes from the splitter's perspective. Much
of it is based on psychological theory. Sometimes, however, it's nice
just to have the hardcore facts about the people who inhabit the internet!
The statistics below are Nielsen/NetRatings from a story in
Internet
World (here's the
online
version of the article) and were reported by John Grohol to the Psychology
of the Internet
mailing
list. These demographic features no doubt influence the social dynamics
of cyberspace, as well as reveal how cyberspace reflects the global culture.
You can read the statistics for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
Here and there, as indicated by the links, I've taken the liberty of adding
my 2 cents (these pop-up windows may not work with all browsers). Whenever
we evaluate statistics like these, we should keep in mind the problem
of "sampling bias" - i.e., did the survey method result in a sample that
is an accurate representation of all people on the internet? Mark Twain
once said, "There are three types of lies: lies, damned lies.... and statistics."
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