Hi Lee, I am happy to see your question as I have always been curious about it and do not feel it has attracted the attention it deserves. I have done qualitative research in that area - my first study was conducted in the late 1990s, but some of the responses referred to an earlier period. It has been published in my book "Internet Society: The Internet in Everyday Life", 2005, Sage, and in a few other places. In case you are interested in reading it, I can send you a few pieces. I am analyzing data from another project at the moment. The interviews were conducted in 2002-3, and the responses to the question 'Why you wanted to connect to the Internet?' are quite different from those at the earlier stage. Regards, Maria -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Lee Rainie Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 12:41 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] research on internet adoption I am looking for help locating research about why people were drawn to the internet in various periods, starting in the early 1990s. There seems to be a decent amount of work focused on why firms large and small embraced the internet, but not nearly as many studies about individual users and their motives for going online in the first place. I am particularly interested in the role that life circumstances played (e.g. Did users embrace the internet first at their workplaces or schools and then in their private lives? Were they coaxed online by friends who already had access?). And I'm interested in research about the online applications that were particularly appealing to newbies (e.g. email, news, health information, e-commerce, adult content, etc.). Finally, I'd appreciate knowing if new users' motives for adoption changed over time. Were those who first hopped online in 1997 drawn online by different factors from those that drew earlier adopters in, say, 1993-1994? Thanks very much, Lee Rainie ********** Director Pew Internet & American Life Project 1615 L Street NW - Suite 700 Washington, D.C. 20036 202-419-4510 http://www.pewinternet.org _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/