KEY POINTS:
New Zealanders may complain about high rates and slow connections but recent studies show we are world leaders in internet use.
Fresh data from AUT University, compiled for the World Internet Project places New Zealand as the country with the highest internet penetration of any of the countries surveyed.
Run out of California, the project compares internet use in 30 countries including the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia.
Late last year, 1430 New Zealanders were quizzed on their use of and attitudes to the internet.
"In almost every way we measured, New Zealand is extraordinarily impressive," says project director and founder Jeff Cole.
Cole was impressed to find New Zealand had the best gender parity of web users of any country in the project - there is just one per cent difference between male and female use.
In the United States, which is second in interent gender parity, women were two percentage points higher than men in internet use.
In fact, Cole says, like it or not, New Zealand is most closely aligned to the United States across all the categories the project measured.
The internet is firmly embedded in the lives of New Zealanders across all demographics, he says.
"When you ask people how they would feel if they lost connection to the internet, only a small percentage say it would be better, very few say it would be the same and most say it would be worse," says Cole.
"We don't think there's a business or an activity that is not being affected and most are being transformed.'
More than half the people who use the internet do their weekly banking online and 70 per cent rated the internet above traditional mass media as a source of information.
AUT University's Dr Allan Bell, who steered the research, says it is also "potentially revolutionary" that Kiwis would consult the internet rather than talking to someone in their close network of people.
New Zealand users are actively creating material online and have the highest percentage of bloggers out of the countries surveyed.
Most users say the internet has increased their overall contact with friends and family, but they spend less time face-to-face with the people they live with.
A quarter of the Kiwis surveyed have made friends online and half of these have gone on to meet them in person, especially men in their 30s.
Bell was surprised to find data tucked away in the research showing that older people are playing computer games on the internet just as much as as younger people do.
Overall, people in their 60s use the internet less than people in their 20s, but Bell says that the gap between generations is rapidly closing.
However questions around access to high-speed broadband do highlight the digital divide.
Less well-off households, geographically isolated people and older generations are still struggling with low-speed dial-up connections.
Cole says New Zealand must improve broadband penetration to keep pace with its ranking against other countries. "Our work shows [broadband] changes everything - it's what integrates it to daily life."
There's no question that Kiwis understand the importance of broadband - it replaces the telephone, traditional media and encourages video sharing. The Government has made a commitment to improve speed and access to the service through its digital strategy, Bell says.
But while broadband has been the greatest agent for change in the internet over the past decade, Cole says the focus is now on developing mobile broadband cellphones that can do virtually anything.
Developing nations are more likely to increase their internet penetration through mobile rather than PC connections over the coming years, he says.
And New Zealand internet is heading the same way.
"The internet is becoming more and more essential. It's becoming something people want everywhere, not just at home on their desks but all over their homes, in their cars, in their pockets - it's an integrated part of daily life and people are relying on it for the simplest things from settling a bet to complex investigations on medical issues. It's affecting relationships with people, with doctors, with politicians, with journalists. We think it's changing virtually everything."
