Study: Internet use and social and civic participation

Canadian Internet users tend to have large personal networks and frequent interactions with friends and family, although they tend to spend less time face-to-face with others, and more time online.

Many are using the World Wide Web in ways that facilitate social and civic participation, such as making contact with others and finding out about their communities.

Internet users, particularly those who spend more than one hour online per day, spend less time on traditional social activities, including time with family members and socializing over meals. However, they are at least as socially engaged as non-users.

For example, Canadians who spend more than one hour online per day spend, on average, nearly two hours more time alone than Internet non-users. Yet, nearly one-half of Internet users’ time online is spent emailing or chatting with others. In addition, Internet users spend more time talking on the phone than non-users.

In recent years, the Internet has also become a resource for telephone contact. In 2007, nearly 10% of home Internet users and more than one-quarter of recent immigrants who used the Internet from home made telephone calls online.

One-half of home Internet users aged 16 and over contacted others through instant messaging, and one-fifth contributed content online by blogging, posting images or participating in discussion groups in 2007. These activities were most common among young Canadians.

In addition, more than 4 in 10 home Internet users said they went online to research community events. This activity was particularly popular among university-educated and urban Canadians.

Canadians also used the Internet to connect with political and social issues. In 2005, just over one-half of home Internet users aged 18 and over reported that they read online newspapers or magazines about a particular social or political issue.

Further, 29% of home Internet users said they went online to read what other Canadians think about political or social issues and 14% said they used the Internet to correspond with other Canadians about these issues.

Overall, 19.2 million Canadians went online for personal non-business reasons in 2007, representing 73% of the population aged 16 and older.

Read More from Statistics Canada

Support Our Sponsors