Access

There were 172,770,464 active home internet users in the US in June 2009, according to Nielsen Online. This was up by 10.36% compared to the previous month. (ClickZ, August 2009)

There were 68.6 million unique US internet users in the workforce, most of them male (54.4%, compared with 45.6% female) in May 2009, according to Nielsen. Similarly, comScore counted 65.6 million at-work internet users, although the gender divide was much closer: 51% were male and 49% female.

Two-thirds of employed adults use the internet and e-mail at their workplace, and nearly half of them do at least some work from home, with 18% working from home every day or nearly every day, according to an eMarketer report entitled ‘At-Work Internet Usage'.

Since 2000, the internet has been credited with boosting work performance and productivity, according to annual surveys by the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future. Some 57% of respondents said the internet had improved their productivity "a lot" or "somewhat" in 2000, and that opinion was shared by 71% of respondents in 2007. Still, an almost-consistent 5% of respondents each year argued that the internet had worsened their job performance "a lot" or "somewhat."

More than half (53%) of respondents to a Kelly Services survey undertaken between Novemer 2008 and January 2009, gave mobile technologies such as phones, PDAs and laptop PCs a "much better" response regarding the devices' effect on work productivity. Another 25% said only "slightly better." (eMarketer, August 2009)