Hierarchy of Internet Usage - User Life Cycle (ULC)

study by eTechnology Group@IMRB on the 4 stages of the usage as a user graduates through the Internet and the time spent by him on major activities on the Internet at various stages of his life cycleThe Internet offers four basic services:· Communication or socializing service with peer group or core group (email) or with new groups of people (chat).· Information services· Entertainment services· Shopping or commerce servicesFrom our qualitative studies with customers, we find that there is a definite hierarchy of usage as users graduate through the Internet. The following figure depicts the usage hierarchy.
Benefit hierarchy of Internet
We discuss below the Internet usage behaviour as the individual progresses across the four stages.
Stage I - The Naïve User: As is evident from all the earlier arguments most of the individuals start off with communication. These include the peer group and new group. In the initial phase of usage i.e. in with in the first month of usage e-mail represents the single major activity that is undertaken.Chat is another major activity undertaken by the users in the first month of usage, as they spend nearly 20% of their time spent on Internet. It has a novelty effect as well.
Information search is devoted as much time as chat in the initial phase. In this phase, it has been widely observed that the users try to figure out ways to surf the Internet and access the information they are looking for.
Stage II - The Adolescent User: The realization dawns that wandering aimlessly in the Internet space yields very little. So, the user becomes more focused in his information search and keeps using search engines for routine information needs. The chat time falls further. The time spent on entertainment increases marginally. The Stage II users know how to get information on the web even though they may not exactly know where it resides. The usage of the search engines starts to go up at this point of time as 26% of the search engine users come from those who have been using Internet for 6 months - 1 year. Time spent on chatting reduces as he allocates that time to answering emails etc. that has started multiplying now. Stage III - The Mature User: The user now realizes better ways to navigate around the web. He visits a few dedicated sites of his personal or professional needs and for other information needs, which these sites are unable to provide he uses the search engines. The search engine usage at this point of time reaches its peak. 33% of the users of search engines belong to this category 1 to 2 years.
The e-mail usage once again picks up due to the networking effect as more and more of his peer group or core group take to the Internet as well as for younger users they start regular and less informal mode of e-mail communication with the chat friends. Hence, e-mail usage increases whereas that of chat usage keeps dipping. The entertainment needs of the individual are still taken care of by almost the same proportion of time he spends on the Internet.
It is in this phase, the users start spending a little more time on shopping on the Internet. However, they spend more time looking for information of the products on the Internet.
Once the user reaches the mature user stage, his behaviour shows little variations according to his demographic or psychographic profile. But the behaviour has more or less stabilized at this stage.
Stage IV - The Professional user: There is very little change from the mature user to a professional user. The significant change being the e-mail usage drops a bit and stabilizes. Similarly, search for information increases a bit and stabilizes. The e-commerce usage reaches its peak here. On an average, almost 1% of the total time spent on the Internet. In this stage, the search engine usage tapers off and shows that the user has more predictable behaviour and stabilized on the sites he looks for information.
The following graph summarizes the changes that happen as a user graduates through experience.
Time spent by major activities on the Internet at various stages of the User Life Cycle (ULC)
Source: I-cube series - eTechnology Group@IMRB
Some other interesting facts can be gleaned from the above graph. Absolute time spent on Chat increase only marginally (only 2% increase from stage III to IV). Against this, time spent on Information increases from 2% in stage II to 54% in stage IV and email from 8% in stage II to 30% in stage IV. Entertainment and ecommerce experience the most growth in stage IV (with growth of 40% and 190% respectively).
Thus, one can clearly discern a hierarchy in Internet usage behaviour among users as they graduate on the Internet. The cycle time as they graduate may compress in future but the fact remains that all users have to undertake this pilgrimage in their search through the Internet.