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Australians believe good things about the Internet

Net users describe themselves as left-leaning law-breakers ... or not

The internet is us, and we are the internet

There is one more thing to extract from the ANUpoll.

The popular “solitary geek” stereotype of the Internet user has become an anachronism – but it’s not because the Internet is changing its users. It’s the other way around: the user base is changing the Internet.

When it was new, when just fetching email demanded technical aptitude, the Internet’s user base was enthusiasts and devotees. The Internet user base of (say) 1993 was not an accurate reflection of society.

Today, most Australians use the internet and, if the 1,200 respondent sample is large enough to accurately depict society, 82 per cent of those users are on broadband connections.

We came, en masse, to the Internet, and in doing so, have reshaped the beliefs and opinions reflected on it. The Internet is not an “isolating force”, not because of some special property it holds, but because most of Australian society is now part of it.

It’s time to stop trying to draw distinctions between “internet users” and the “rest of society”, because the two are becoming indistinguishable. ®

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