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| Summary of Findings |
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| Summary of SIP Singapore – USA Cross Country Comparison Study |
| Overall Usage Patterns |
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The proportion of Internet users in USA exceeded Singapore’s by about 18% points. |
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Overall, both Singaporean and American Internet users spent about 10 hours per week on the Internet respectively. |
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Singaporean and American Internet users spent about the same amount of time on the Internet at home. |
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Information seeking was the top online activity for the Internet users in both countries. |
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Online chatting was more prevalent in Singapore whereas online transactions were more common in USA. |
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| Digital Divide |
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A digital divide existed along the lines of gender, age, level of education, family income and marital status in both Singapore and USA. |
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The digital divide was greater for Singapore. |
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| Family Interaction |
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Singaporean Internet users tend to spend less time socializing with their families than do American Internet users. |
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Singaporean non-users tend to spend more time socializing with their families than do Singaporean Internet users while no such difference is found in USA. |
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Majority of the Internet users in both countries felt no change in their time spent with their families after using the Internet. |
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The Americans tended to have greater strength in their family relationships than the Singaporeans as reflected by the family relationship index. |
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| Social Interaction |
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Internet users in Singapore and USA spent nearly the same amount of time socializing face-to-face with friends outside office hours. |
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Non-users in Singapore spent considerably less time in socializing with friends as compared to the others. |
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Most of the Internet users in both countries felt no change in their contact with people who share their hobbies, political interests, religion and profession with the use of Internet. |
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| Media Use |
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Television was the most popular medium in both countries for both Internet users and non-users. |
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Internet and radio was the second and third most popular medium respectively for Internet users in both countries. |
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Radio was the second most popular medium for non-users in both countries. |
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| Perception of the Internet |
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Roughly about 70% of both Singaporean and American Internet users regarded the Internet as an important source of information. |
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Only about one-fifth of Singaporean non-users and a quarter of American non-users thought that the Internet was an important source of information. |
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More than half of Internet users and non-users in both countries regarded television as an important information source. |
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A higher percentage of Singaporean respondents regarded radio as an important source of information than American respondents. |
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Newspaper enjoyed the highest percentage of both Internet users and non-users in both countries claiming it as an important information source. |
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Magazines were regarded as an important information source by the least proportion of Internet users and non-users in both countries. |
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Slightly more than half of the Internet users in both countries thought that most of the information found on the Internet was reliable and accurate. |
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Only around three out of ten non-users in both countries thought that most of the information found on the Internet was reliable and accurate. |
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Around 70% and more than half of the Internet users in Singapore and USA respectively, thought that they became more productive in their work with the use of the Internet. |
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In terms of political empowerment with the use of Internet, American Internet users thought more highly of the medium than its non-users while there were no such difference between Singaporean Internet users and non-users. |
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Singaporean non-users thought more highly of the Internet as a political empowerment tool than did their American counterparts while there was no such differences between Internet users in both countries. |
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| For the detailed report, click here to download. |
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