Behavior Of Internet Users Research Articles

Period of internet usage: An indicator of the buying behaviour of internet users?

This article focuses on the experience of the Internet user with regard to purchasing goods and services. A self-administered survey, hosted on a dedicated website, was used as a data collection method and 1005 responses were received. It was found that the period of Internet usage significantly influenced the decision to purchase via the Internet. Another finding was that the period of Internet usage significantly influenced whether those shopping on the Internet searched for, or considered searching for, product and service information online prior to purchasing from non-Internet-based sellers.

Do size and structure matter to mobile users? An empirical study of the effects of screen size, information structure, and task complexity on user activities with standard web phones

The small screens of mobile Internet devices, combined with the increasing complexity of mobile tasks, create a serious obstacle to usability in the mobile Internet. One way to circumvent the obstacle is to organize an information structure with efficient depth/breadth trade-offs. A controlled lab experiment was conducted to investigate how screen size and information structure affect user behaviours and perceptions. The moderating effects of task complexity on the relationship between screen size/information structure and user navigation/perceptions were also investigated. Study results indicate that both information structure and screen size significantly affect the navigation behaviour and perceptions of mobile Internet users. Task complexity was also found to heighten the influence of information structure on user behaviour and perceptions. The paper ends with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications, among them a key implication for mobile Internet businesses: for corporate intranet systems as well as m-commerce transaction systems, the horizontal depth of information structures should be adapted to task complexity and anticipated screen size.

A Websites Analysis of European Tourism Organizations

ABSTRACT Internet has proved to be a widespread medium and an integral part of the habits of millions of users. An effective online communication strategy is considered nowadays a key element to achieve a competitive advantage on the market to satisfy actual and potential tourists' information needs in a highly competitive way and to acquire new clients. All the European countries have implemented some kind of official tourism portal to promote their own destinations. An analysis of these tourism websites has been performed collecting end-user evaluations and mapping contents and services offered online. The results of this survey are presented and are compared with the general behaviour of the European Internet users regarding the usage of the network as a tool to gather information and to acquire travel services.

Exploring Differences in Internet Adoption and Usage between Historically Advantaged and Disadvantaged Groups in South Africa

Theories of technology adoption and usage behaviour have generally been crafted and tested in developed countries. This study therefore aimed to extend knowledge by examining Internet adoption and usage behaviour in a developing country (South Africa). Differences in Internet adoption between those from a group previously advantaged by apartheid and those from a group previously disadvantaged were speciJically examined. For the previously advantaged, Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Enjoyment, and Long-term Consequences of Use were found to influence Internet adoption. For the previously disadvantaged, the main influence was Perceived Usefulness, with Perceived Ease of Use having an indirect effect through Perceived Usefulness. DtfSerences in Internet experience and exposure to technology largely explained the observed results as a result of varying socio-economic backgrounds between the majorities in the two groups. The implications of these findings in respect of the digital divide are discussed.

Analyzing the impact of selfish behaviors of Internet users and operators

Using the price of anarchy (PA) and the price of monopoly (PM), the impact of selfish behaviors of noncooperative users and profit seeking operators respectively are studied. Although PA characterizes the impact of complete deregulation, and PM characterizes the impact of complete regulation, this paper shows that they are related as primal and dual ratios of two correlated optimization problems. An approach to derive bounds of both these ratios is proposed, and numerical bounds of both prices are derived in simple affine settings.

Decision process modeling across internet and real world by double helical model of chance discovery

A case is presented for the double helical processing of chance discovery — human and an automated data mining system co-work, each progressing spirally toward the creative reconstruction of ideas. Especially, the discovery of what we call chances, significant novel events, is realized in this process. The example shown here is an application to questionnaire analysis for understanding new behaviors of Internet users. Internet users are born and bred with face-to-face human relations in the real world, but their interactions with WWW are distilling new value-criteria, keeping personal real-world senses of rationality, empathy, ethics, etc. In our method for aiding the discovery based on the double-helix model, the in-depth interaction of the Internet, the fundamental (i.e., common both in the Internet and in the real world) characters and the behaviors of people are discussed with revealing unnoticed value-criteria.

Recommender Systems Based on User Navigational Behavior in the Internet

Starting from data available about (anonymous) visitors of a website, possibilities of extracting information as well as enriching pure browsing patterns with the help of business measures (e-metrics) and detecting possibly negative effects of web robots are sketched as prerequisites for interpretation purposes of the navigational behavior of internet users. Problems with the reconstruction of user navigation paths are explained and different heuristics for path completion are discussed. Additionally, several kinds of features of user navigation paths (e.g., sets, sequences, path fragments) have to be mentioned to prepare for an adequate theoretical background concerning recommender systems that can be used for tasks as different as site personalization, cross-/up-selling, and navigation assistance. A vocabulary to describe different kinds of recommender systems and generic quality measures for system evaluation are formulated. Then, specific recommender systems, especially systems based on frequent path features, are defined and evaluated in a final experiment. In an outlook directions for future research on recommender systems are given.

Effects of pricing on Internet user behavior

The INternet Demand EXperiment (INDEX) conducts experiments to measure demand for quality-differentiated Internet access as a function of bandwidth, traffic volume, applications, and pricing structure. This paper presents an overview of results based on aggregated data from five pricing experiments. In these experiments, pricing is based either on time, volume, a combination of both, or a flat-rate buy out option. Quality of Service (QoS) is differentiated by varying bandwidth for incoming and outgoing traffic. After describing the experimental design and characterizing our subject pool using demographic data, we examine the change in service usage by comparing the five experiments in terms of traffic generation, QoS selection, and expenditure.

From molecules to mindfulness

Fractal time fluctuations of the spectral “1/f” form are universal in natural self-organizing systems. Neurobiology is uniquely infused with fractal fluctuations in the form of statistically self-similar clusters or bursts on all levels of description from molecular events such as protein chain fluctuations, ion channel currents and synaptic processes to the behaviors of neural ensembles or the collective behavior of Internet users. It is the thesis of this essay that the brain self-organizes via a vertical collation of these spontaneous events in order to perceive the world and generate adaptive behaviors. REM sleep, which coalesces from self-similar clusters of burst-within-burst behavior during ontogeny, is essential to cognitive-emotional function, and has recurrent fractal organization. Empirical fMRI observations further support the association of fractal fluctuations in the temporal lobes, brainstem and cerebellum during the expression of emotional memory, spontaneous fluctuations of thought and meditative practice. Cognitive-emotional integration arises as amygdaloid-brainstem-cerebellar systems harmonize the vertical “1/f” symphony of coupled isochronous cortical oscillations in the pursuit of mindfulness.

Sensation Seeking and Collegiate Vulnerability to Internet Dependence

Past research on Internet dependence has suggested that those who are Internet dependent spend more time on-line, use chat rooms more frequently, play MUDs more often, and web surf more than nondependent Internet users, but few studies have examined how personality characteristics interact with Internet dependence. This study investigates how Internet usage, preferences, attitudes toward the Internet, and Internet behaviors are correlated with sensation seeking. It was predicted that participants who were higher in Internet usage and Internet behaviors would be higher in sensation seeking. Results indicated that Internet dependents tended to spend more time online, use E-mail, surf the web, use chat rooms, use MUDs, and visit cybersex sites more often than nondependent Internet users. However, dependents scored significantly lower on sensation seeking, thrill and adventure seeking, and excitement seeking than nondependent Internet users. It was concluded that dependents interact with the internet using a motivation scheme dissimilar to the physical thrill and excitement that typically characterize sensation seeking archetypes.