UK internet porn habits exposed

More than a third of UK web surfers are taking a peek at X-rated websites, according to a new survey which also reveals the number of women using the internet is climbing.

Forty per cent of the top 5769 websites visited by 1600 users who took part in the study by Net Value contained adult-only material, and 35 per cent of all surfers (2.71m men and 880,000 women) check out X-rated sites. Just over a fifth of this type of traffic is generated by students.

The total number of UK internet users has grown by 15 per cent in the six months from December 1999 to May 2000 from 8.5m to 9.9m, according to the research. The number of male surfers has risen from 5.1m to 6.1m, while there are now 400,000 more female surfers than in December - 3.8m instead of 3.4m.

Net Value conducted the research using tracking software installed on computers in 1600 UK households - similar to the way TV audience ratings are calculated.

As more free or low-cost unmetered internet access packages have become available, so surfers appear to be staying online longer. While people spent an average of four hours and 42 minutes online in December 1999, the average time in May 2000 was six hours and six minutes.

One of the most significant growth in new users has been among so-called silver surfers, the over 50s, particularly among the over 65s. There are now more than 500,000 pensioners using the internet, and they are the heaviest users of all age groups, going online an average of 15 days last month.

The UK's most popular shopping website, for the second month running, is the book, music and games site Streetsonline, which has been visited by one in six UK surfers. The next most popular sites are amazon.co.uk/amazon.com, jungle.com and lastminute.com.

"The use of email marketing has been integral to Streetsonline's success, with special offers regularly emailed to their customers," said the report. "Interestingly, [Streetsonline's] users send and receive almost two and a half times more emails than the average internet user."

Net Value's statistics have been generated from panels of surfers who are paid a nominal sum to have monitoring software installed in their home-based computers. Some 69.8 per cent of all surfing is currently done from the home, according to Net Value. No office-based computers are included in the panels.

The findings are then compared with a rolling survey conducted monthly by Taylor Nelson Sofres, one of the leading firms involved in the calculation of TV audience figures, to generate the results.