Abstract:

Is time spent on the Internet at the cost of time spent in front of the TV set? In publications on the relation between Internet use and TV viewing, most analysts take only one point in time into consideration. This leads to misinterpretations. The authors conclude that the first Internet users do view less TV initially, but over time Internet starters' TV viewing approaches the average TV viewing time, even exceeds it. We also show that TV viewing time first drops off after the start of Internet access, but then returns to the previous level in one or two years.