Nobody Goes Online Anymore

AllThingsD has an interesting little story about some recent Forrester research on internet usage. The gist is that Forrester asked people how much time they spend online and the number went down from 2011 instead of up. This would be shocking if it were true, but it's not, and presents an interesting case of the problem with self-reporting in research. The article sums it up like this:

“Despite the fact that they always have connected devices and are always online, they don’t really realize they’re online,” said Forrester analyst Gina Sverdlov. “They’re using Google Maps or checking in on Facebook, but that’s not considered online because it has become such a part of everyday life.”

It's actually amazing to me we don't spend more time talking about the issues with self-reporting because this stuff happens all the time. People classically overreport the good things about themselves and underreport the bad stuff (if you compared the number of New Yorkers who say they read the times with the traffic/newspaper sales something doesn't add up). On top of that, though, we ask seemingly innocuous questions that actually turn out to be confusing for regular folks (I don't know how I'd answer how much time I spend "using" the internet either).

There is something important here as the web continues to shift to an ambient medium that is just tied into our lives. I think for those of us that have been living online for awhile now it's no surprise, but it's interesting to see others catching up to that way of thinking.