'Net set erodes tube time

Study finds TV watching down 12.3 hours per week

By DAVID BLOOM

Internet use continues to eat into the time people are watching TV, and it likely will only increase as more users get broadband connections, according to third-year results of the UCLA Internet Project.

Researchers found Internet users tend to "buy" their online time by spending fewer hours in front of a TV. That trend increased last year, with the average Internet user's TV watching dropping from 12.3 hours per week in 2001 to 11.2 hours in 2002.

The TV-watching gap between Net users and non-users also became more pronounced. Last year, Net users spent 5.4 hours less TV time per week than non-users, compared to 4.5 fewer hours in 2001.

The differences only increase with users of high-speed broadband connections, which are becoming increasingly popular, the study found.

Other findings were somewhat paradoxical. Though three-fifths of U.S. residents said they considered the Net a very important or extremely important source of information, only about half believed most or all the information online was reliable and accurate.

The project, which has surveyed 2,000 U.S. homes on their Net use each of the past three years, becomes available for free download Friday at www.ccp.ucla.edu. It is part of a broader worldwide set of studies of Net use conducted in several countries on three other continents.