2011 Discussion of WIP Findings on Poland

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POLISH INTERNET USERSAS COMPARED TO THE WORLD:

WHERE AND WHICH WAYIS THE POLISH INTERNET GOING?

Professor William Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institutetalks to Polish Internet researchers at the presentation of results

of the World Internet Project: Poland 2011

This document is an edited record of speeches and presentations made at a conference held to present the results of the survey“World Internet Project: Poland 2011”. Participants of the conference were academic and business researchers of the Internetand representatives of companies coordinating WIP in Poland:Prof. William Dutton (Oxford Internet Institute), Dr. Dominik Batorski (University of Warsaw),Dr. Mirosław Filiciak (Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities), Dr. Justyna Hofmokl (Centrum Cyfrowe),Dr. Marek Troszyński (Collegium Civitas), Dr. Jan Zając (University of Warsaw), Tomasz Józefacki (Agora),Piotr Muszyński (TP Group), Arkadiusz Kustra (Agora), Jakub Rzeźnik (TP Group).

The meeting was held on 24th October 2011 at the premises of Agora in Warsaw.

Project idea and management: Piotr ToczyskiEditing and the text of the summary: Dariusz ĆwiklakOrganisation of the conference: Kaja Rud, Jolanta JędrysekConducting the World Internet Project survey in Poland: Research and Analysis Team of Gazeta.pl(official partner of WIP) in coordination with the TP Group Market Research Department and with Orange: Piotr Toczyski,Arkadiusz Kustra, Maria Gerszewska, Jakub Rzeźnik

Information on the World Internet Project:Participants of the survey conducted every year in more than a dozen countries of the world are asked questions, prepared usingstrict methodology, about such things as: access to the Internet, reasons for and purposes of using or not using the Internet,media consumption time, ways of using the Internet and their online experience, perception of security in the Internet, Internetas a factor reinforcing or weakening contacts with the social environment, influence of the Internet on the interviewees’ publiclife awareness, credibility of information on the Internet, Internet and other media as information and entertainment source,time spent offline with family and friends, multitasking, feelings and opinions on freedom of expression and the public sphere.

The World Internet Project is a leading international project monitoring transformations of the media and their influence onsocial and economic phenomena. About thirty reputable centres from all around the world participate in the WIP research,which is coordinated by the prestigious USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of SouthernCalifornia. In Poland, the exclusive partners of the World Internet Project are Agora (official partner) and TP Group.

Professor Dutton, a long–standing director of the Oxford Internet Institute, is responsible, among others, for the Oxford e–SocialScience Project, supported by the Research Committee of the Economic and Social Research Council.He actively participates in Oxford Internet Surveys, which are the key source of information about the use of Internet in the UKand are an element of the World Internet Project. William H. Dutton is currently working on the idea of “the fifth power”, i.e.Internet media. His interests include such topics as organising a cooperation network similar to web 2.0 and research on nextgeneration politics.

CONTENTSNext generation Internet users.............................................................................................. 3

Why are we involved in WIP? ................................................................................................ 7

Quality of content is determinant .......................................................................................... 8

Discussion on the results of the World Internet Project: Poland 2011 .................................................. 9

Next generation users in the UK and in Poland (speech by Prof. William Dutton) ................................... 13

Discussion of Polish Internet researchers ................................................................................. 18

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WORLD INTERNET PROJECT: POLAND 2011

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They have access to the Internet any-time, anywhere, they don’t just sitin front of a PC at home. They areactive, they are eager to consumeculture also in the offline world.But they don’t want to pay for

books, films or music online. These are next gen-eration users who have already started appearingin Poland.

“A new kind of digital divide is emerging, a di-vide between first and next generation users,”said Prof. William Dutton of the Oxford InternetInstitute when he was presenting the results ofthe British edition of World In-ternet Project surveys. Sociolo-gists are already concerned withthe first type of digital divide –between Internet users andthose who don’t spend time on-line. This is because Internethelps to raise the quality of lifethanks to quick access to infor-mation, cheaper and more con-venient services, etc. However,a large part of the society (morethan one in four British peopleand almost one in three Poles)don’t use the Internet.

Meanwhile, the results of theBritish surveys show more and more clearly a di-vide between those users who are more experi-enced, more active, and those who use the Inter-net only at a basic level.

The mobile, the active, the creative

In the British edition of the World Internet Proj-ect, Prof. William Dutton distinguished a group ofnext generation users. “These are people who ac-cess the Internet not only using their home PC orlaptop. They have multiple devices: a tablet,smartphone, e–book reader, and they use at leastsome of them on the go, to access the Internet ina mobile way,” explained Prof. Dutton.

In the UK such users started to appear in 2007,but in the recent years their number has grownrapidly (one of the reasons being the smartphoneand tablet revolution). “Next generation usersmove around and use the Internet instead of be-ing tied to a home computer,” said Prof. Dutton.This does not mean that home PCs are a thing ofthe past, they’re still the main anchor to the In-ternet. “But readers, tablets, etc. extend andcomplement what you do at home. They allow youto bring the Internet with you and use it seam-lessly elsewhere,” said Prof. Dutton.

In Poland the mobile revolution is still to come.According to the Polish editionof the World Internet Project2011, 10 per cent of Internetusers go online using their mo-biles (2 percentage points morethan in the previous year). –“However, in groups which arethe first to adopt new tech-nologies, this percentage ismuch higher. For example, asmuch as 20 per cent of studentsaccess the Internet using theirmobiles,” said Arkadiusz Kustrafrom the research and analysisdepartment of Gazeta.pl. As thePolish edition of the World In-

ternet Project shows, in the last year there’s beenan increase in the number of people using laptops– from 20 to 28 per cent.

“Next generation users are much more likely togenerate content. They visit social networkingsites, post photos, post videos, they have theirpersonal websites, write blogs,” said Prof. Dut-ton. They are also more likely to use the Internetfor entertainment: they download and listen tomusic. Of course, the Internet is also their basicsource of information.

Dr. Justyna Hofmokl of Centrum Cyfrowe andDr. Mirosław Filiciak of the Warsaw School of So-cial Sciences and Humanities are convinced thatnext generation users have already appeared in

NEXT GENERATION INTERNET USERS

PROF. DUTTONABOUT BRITAIN:British next generationusers are more likely to payfor services online, butwhen it comes to thequestion if it is appropriateto download music withoutpaying, they are more likelyto agree. So we’ve gota really complex setof attitudes about paymentonline

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Poland. They conducted an online survey on al-ternative forms of exchanging content in the In-ternet. “In this group, 39 per cent of the respon-dents said they accessed the Internet using mo-bile devices,” said Dr. Hofmokl.

“A group of people who transfer at least a partof their social lives to the Internet is also moreand more prominent. Some even say that “if you’renot on Facebook, you don’t exist,” said Dr. MarekTroszyński of Collegium Civitas.

However, in the Polish edition of the World In-ternet Project those active users are not so wellvisible yet. “We must remember that the popula-tion of Internet users is still not fully developed,”reminded Dr. Hofmokl. – “The website Nasza–Klasawas most successful in popularising the Internetin Poland, but it’s a rather pas-sive website. People joined it tomeet their old friends, but that’sbasically it.”

“We have two types of Inter-net users in Poland,” argued Dr.Dominik Batorski of the Univer-sity of Warsaw, a co–author ofthe Social Diagnosis research.“Some use it chiefly to developtheir interests, to work or study,while the others treat it mainlyas a source of entertainment.The first group are mainly peo-ple with better education, fromlarger towns. People who can’tuse the Internet to improve theirlife situation are not very muchdifferent from those who have no Internet accessat all,” said Dr. Batorski.

Pirates out of necessity?

One of the things researched in the Polish editionof the World Internet Project 2011 was the scaleof the online circulation of books, music and films.“Of course it often happens without the consentof people holding copyrights to these works,” ex-plained Arkadiusz Kustra of Gazeta.pl. Accordingto the surveys, as many as two thirds of the Pol-ish Internet users have ever accessed electroniccultural content in one way or another (using P2Psoftware, file sharing sites such as Chomikuj.pl,

instant messengers, e–mail or data storage de-vices). Most of them are males and young people.

“Already two years ago we conducted a survey,together with Gazeta.pl, which told us that there’sa huge group of people in Poland who regularlywatch American TV series which can’t be watchedlegally in Poland. They just download them fromthe Internet,” reminded Dr. Mirosław Filiciak. Theonline research on the scale of piracy, which wasconducted this year by Dr. Filiciak and Dr. Hofmokl,reveals that even one in four Internet users down-load such “free” content regularly.

According to Dr. Filiciak, in terms of scale thisinformal culture flow in the Internet can be com-pared to the official circulation in the real world,that is buying books, films, CDs, etc. What’s in-

teresting, as Dr. Hofmokl point-ed out, the same people who ex-change cultural content infor-mally on the Internet are alsoready to spend money on legalCDs, go to concerts, buy books.They even visit libraries.

Dr. Filiciak argued that pira-cy on the Internet is not a pure-ly Polish problem. “From theSwedish edition of the World In-ternet Project we can find outthat sharing files on the Inter-net is an important part of youngSwedes’ culture, just like writ-ing blogs is important for theculture of young Swedishwomen,” he said. “It is clear

that this is not just an issue of respect for the law,but a kind of paradigm change.”

“British next generation users are more likelyto pay for services online, but when it comes tothe question if it is appropriate to download mu-sic without paying, they are more likely to agree.So we’ve got a really complex set of attitudesabout payment online,” added Prof. Dutton.

“In Poland the discourse has long been domi-nated by the large publishers who cry that down-loading music from the Internet is serious piracy.Much less is said about other examples of youngartists for whom the possibility of downloadingfiles means an opportunity to make a career,” saidDr. Jan Zając from the University of Warsaw.

PROF. DUTTON ABOUT POLAND:I think you are probably inthe old Internet world, withmost of the rest of Europe,”said Prof. Dutton. “Butyou’re moving in thedirection of the newInternet world in that sensethat users are becomingmore active. You still seemuncertain about freedom ofexpression and whetherInternet can be trusted as a medium

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“Users want to decide for themselves what theyconsume, when and how. To some extent, theproblem of piracy follows from the fact that busi-ness does not respond well to this demand. Busi-ness tries to maintain constant ways of deliveringcontent, saying: we will give you this content, youcan use it so and so. New models are necessary,”pointed out Dr. Dominik Batorski.

“One of the critical issues in the future of the In-ternet and e–commerce is to figure out better busi-ness models that can be applied to the news, tomusic, and so forth. Unfortunately, rather than look-ing for new business models that are appropriatein the Internet age, people aretrying to hold these old businessmodels using law. That creates areally terrible atmosphere inwhich we try to delegitimise ac-tivities that are viewed as ap-propriate by most people,”agreed Prof. William Dutton.

New Internet, traditionalvalues

“Today the centre of gravity ofthe Internet is shifting to Asia,where there are 40 per cent ofall Internet users globally,” saidProf. William Dutton. “A new In-ternet world is emerging. America and Europe aredeclining as a proportion of Internet users. Today,there are more Chinese online than there areAmericans on the planet!”

Prof. William Dutton conducted the Global Val-ues Project survey ordered by the World Econom-ic Forum. He interviewed Internet users from 13countries (Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Cana-da, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Mexico,South Africa, Spain, USA, UK) on various basic val-ues. “I have good news for you: the new centre ofgravity of the Internet is not necessarily going toresult in a change in culture that will underminefreedom of expression and other values that areimportant to the Internet,” said Prof. Dutton.

Some Internet users from Asia and quickly de-veloping countries are even more willing to sup-port some basic values in the Internet, such asfreedom of expression, than people from the old

Internet world. These new users are also more in-novative and active than those from the old In-ternet world.

Which world does Poland belong to? “I think youare probably in the old Internet world, with mostof the rest of Europe,” said Prof. Dutton. “Butyou’re moving in the direction of the new Inter-net world in that sense that users are becomingmore active. You still seem uncertain about free-dom of expression and whether Internet can betrusted as a medium. I think there’s a moment ofdecision in Poland about where you’re set in thisworldwide map.”

One of the important prob-lems of the modern Internet isthe issue of data privacy. “Ac-cording to the results of theWorld Internet Project, 42 percent of Polish Internet users donot have a problem with postingprivate information and photoson the Internet,” said ArkadiuszKustra of Gazeta.pl. “The per-centage is a little smaller thanlast year. The increase in thepopularity of social networkingsites probably made the Polishpeople more aware of the con-sequences of uploading theirlives to the Internet.”

“Next generation users are less concerned aboutprivacy,” said Prof. Dutton. „The people who aremost frightened of the Internet in terms of priva-cy or surveillance are those people who have nev-er used the Internet. People who have experienceonline realise that they can do things without highrisk. But they do not develop a blind trust in theInternet or silly optimism.”

Around 30 per cent of Polish Internet users ad-mitted to WIP interviewers that they fear theironline activity is watched by the government orcompanies. “Prof. Jeffrey Cole, the head of theWorld Internet Project, wrote: ‘today Big Broth-er is big business.’ Large companies check whatconsumers do in the Internet and it seems thatPolish Internet users are growing more and moreaware of that fact,” commented Kustra.

“It’s very worrisome that you have the sense ofbeing watched online,” said Prof. Dutton. – But

DR. HOFMOKL:Polish Internet users hardlyuse any services online.They are not even awareof these services. Thereshould be more pressure onoffices to take moreinitiatives of this kind,because the Internet shouldenter not only the worldof entertainment but alsothe sphere of practical life

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this could be changing globally. If Jeff Cole is right,this can have a huge chilling effect on the futureof the Internet. It could be absolutely a disasterif people do not try to protect the Internet as aplace where you can have secure, anonymous,free and open expression and get access to infor-mation.”

“At a recent conference celebrating the tenthanniversary of the Oxford Internet Institute, thewords ‘privacy is over’ could be heard in everysecond speech,” said Dr. Jan Zając. “According toManuel Castells, the governments are all the timetrying to control the Internet or at least watchclosely what’s going on there. In Poland this hasbeen clearly visible in the last months, when a lotof legislative initiatives and similar projects ap-peared.”

“Who are we really afraid of?” asked Dr. MarekTroszyński of Collegium Civitas. “In the first Pol-ish edition of the World Internet Project the mainthreat to people’s privacy were clearly corpora-tions. Now more and more people fear that ouractivity could be monitored by the government.This is a very philosophical question: about thelimits of freedom of expression and other similarissues fundamental for the functioning of a soci-ety. It seems completely legitimate to me to treatthe Internet as a public sphere where we shouldbe responsible for what we say. This leads to a con-tradiction: on the one hand, Internet users are forfreedom of expression, but against offending oth-ers. On the other hand, on the Internet there is alot of hate speech and attempts of political par-ties to use it for their own interests. The questionis how this organism can regulate itself.”

“We shouldn’t talk about the Internet as onespace, but rather about different spaces withinthe Internet,” pointed out Dr. Dominik Batorski.“The internet needs places where there is noanonymity, but also places which ensure anonymi-ty, to provide a forum for people living in author-itarian regimes or workers who are afraid to talkopenly about breaking the law in their companies.”

How to experience the Internet?

According to the World Internet Project 2011, 62per cent of Poles use the Internet, while 38 percent don’t use it even occasionally. “But we should

remember that among these 62 per cent of peo-ple who use the Internet, 8 per cent are those whouse it for less than an hour a week, which means:hardly ever,” said Arkadiusz Kustra. „On the oth-er hand, in the group of people who do not usethe Internet 41 per cent have somebody they askto look different things up on the Internet. Thesepeople are therefore within the reach of infor-mation published on the Internet.”

What is worrying is that as many as 87 per centof people who do not use the Internet do not feelthey miss something, and only 4 per cent of themplan to start using the Internet within the next sixmonths.

“People who don’t have access to the Internetdon’t understand what they are missing,” ex-plained Prof. Dutton. “The Internet is an experi-ence technology. You can’t explain the Internetto somebody, just like you can’t explain a searchengine or social networking. Nobody will under-stand this unless they start using it. People don’tunderstand the Internet until they experience itand they don’t think they need to experience itbecause they don’t think they need it. It’s a realconundrum.”

But even those who have been using the Inter-net for a long time don’t do it very actively. “Theresearch shows that Polish Internet users hardlyuse any services online,” said Dr. Justyna Hofmokl.“Only a small percentage of people participatedin the last census online, people don’t send taxreturns via the Internet, although it’s really get-ting easier all the time. This means that they arenot even aware of these services. There should bemore pressure on offices to take more initiativesof this kind, because the Internet should enter notonly the world of entertainment but also thesphere of practical life.”

“Paradoxically, although more and more of ususe the Internet, our online world and our offlinereality are growing more and more apart,” saidDr. Marek Troszyński. “It would seem that the In-ternet could be a great tool to do research on can-didates in the recent parliamentary elections. Itturns out, however, that again over 90 per cent ofthe votes were cast for people from the first placesin the candidate lists. The potential of the Inter-net does not translate into our real lives as wellas I would expect.”

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Ladies and Gentlemen,My name is Tomasz Józefacki

and I am a director at Agora re-sponsible for online activities ofthe company. For some timenow we have been invitingworld–famous authorities whocan determine the direction inwhich the Internet is going. Sofar our invitations have been ac-cepted by such people as Pro-fessor Manuel Castells of theUniversity of Southern Califor-nia, Professor Anne Nelson ofthe Columbia University andProfessor Jeffrey Cole of the An-nenberg School for Communi-cation, the originator of theWorld Internet Project.

This year, we are organising the second editionof WIP, for which we have invited Professor WilliamDutton of the Oxford Internet Institute. Prof. Dut-ton has been researching the Internet for manyyears, he has always cooperated with very pres-tigious institutions having a scientific interest inthe Internet: the Annenberg School for Commu-

nication, and now the OxfordInternet Institute in the UK.

Why did Agora get involved inWIP? For many years we havebeen propagating knowledge onwhat Internet is and how itchanges the world around us– we try to make this knowledgefamiliar, gather and interpretit. The Internet is an excep-tionally important medium fora company like Agora, becauseit is the platform on which weare building our new media andmultimedia reality. We try tofind out how the Internet worksas a medium, how it changesthe general media reality, and

how people use different media – for the Inter-net has a huge influence on the way we consumetelevision, the press, radio. A completely new re-ality is emerging around us.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to theTP Group, who for the second time helped us inthe WIP research – the project would not have suc-ceeded like it did without this important support.

WHY ARE WE INVOLVED IN WIP?

TOMASZJÓZEFACKIAGORA SA

For many years we havebeen propagating knowledgeon what Internet is and howit changes the world aroundus – we try to make thisknowledge familiar, gatherand interpret it

On the pages

worldinternetproject.net and badania.gazeta.pl

you can find the full reports of the “World Internet Project: Poland” from 2010 and 2011 with extensive commentary byProf. Jeffrey Cole of USC Annenberg School for Communication(2010) and Prof. William Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institute(2011) and texts by Polish Internet researchers

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Ladies and Gentlemen,Agora is a very important

partner for the TP Group, notonly in this project. I will tellyou an interesting story whichshows why is it good to build re-lations going beyond businessas usual.

You surely remember one ofthe most dramatic events in thehistory of Poland: the crash ofthe government plane on 10thApril 2010. On that day we ex-perienced in Poland a telecom-munications crisis, which last-ed 45 minutes. There was ablack–out in all mobile networksand the landline network suf-fered from a significant deteri-oration in availability to all sorts of services. Theproblems affected not only mobile phones, me-dia, but also providers giving access to platformswith news content.

Several weeks earlier we had completed a proj-ect with Agora which provided an innovative so-lution for managing the traffic of people access-ing Agora’s platform. We had built the first ex-perimental Content Delivery Network (CDN) inPoland – based on eight dedicated servers, whichreplicate geographically the content on Agora’splatform so that the users – recognised by theirIPs – could obtain content from one of them. This

made Agora the only online con-tent provider who could be ac-cessed all the time.

The conclusion is that withoutthorough knowledge, without re-search, without deep analyticalapproach we are not able to un-derstand the evolution of users’behaviour patterns, which cre-ate the users’ profiles. Besides,this is probably the most dy-namically changing element offunctioning of customers of bothIT companies and operators ofplatforms generating content.

Access to the Internet itselfis no longer a value. It’s just adoor which brings the customerscloser to knowledge, to partic-

ular content. Today the quality of the Internet isdetermined by the quality of content distributedby the operators. This is why we are so interest-ed in understanding where our market is going,how our customers are developing. As a telecom-munications operator we are no longer a genera-tor of events, we don’t invite technological solu-tions. We try to research and respond to what themarket and the customers create today. It is thecustomer who functions in the open Internet space,creating new customs, habits, needs, and we needto answer them. This is why this kind of researchand our participation are so important.

PIOTRMUSZYŃSKIVICE–PRESIDENT

OF TP

QUALITY OF CONTENT IS DETERMINANT

The customer functionsin the open Internet space,creating new customs,habits, needs, and we needto answer them. This is whythis kind of research andour participation are soimportant

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ARKADIUSZ KUSTRA: Ladies and Gentlemen,I have the pleasure to presentyou the results of the secondedition of the World InternetProject survey in Poland. Myname is Arkadiusz Kustra and Irepresent the research andanalysis team of the websiteGazeta.pl.

First let me tell you about theresearch method. This year, justlike last year, the survey wasconducted by the IPSOS Insti-tute, to which I would like toexpress my gratitude. A randomsample of two thousand peoplewere selected for the inter-views, which were conductedusing the CAPI method in the in-terviewees’ homes.

Based on our experiencesfrom the previous year, we in-troduced some improvementsin the research method. The ba-sic instrument of the survey is avery extensive questionnaire.Before we started the survey,we did some test interviews,watched them through a two–way mirror and modified our re-search tools to make the survey as easy for theinterviewee as possible. Secondly, we improvedthe sampling method. We are very satisfied withthese changes and we believe that the survey isrepresentative for the population of Poles aged15 or more, representative for the population ofInternet users, people who don’t use the Inter-net, and also has the dimension of a penetrativeresearch – it precisely determines the proportionof people who do and don’t use the Internet inPoland.

According to this edition of the World InternetProject survey, conducted just before the sum-

mer holidays, 62 per cent ofPoles use the Internet, while 38per cent don’t use it even oc-casionally. A simple divide be-tween those who do and don’tuse the Internet is a gross sim-plification. Among the 62 percent of people who use the In-ternet, 8 per cent are those whouse it for less than an hour aweek, which means: hardlyever. On the other hand, 41 percent of those who do not usethe Internet have somebodythey ask to look different thingsup on the Internet. In a way,these people are within thereach of information publishedon the Internet.

In Poland, just like in manyother countries, the mobile rev-olution is still to come. Accord-ing to the survey, 10 per cent ofInternet users access the Inter-net using their mobile phones,which is 2 percentage pointsmore than in the previous year.This increase is not spectacular,so it seems that the revolutionis still before us. However, itshould come rather soon, as in

some groups which are usually most likely to adoptnew technologies this percentage is much high-er, for example as many as 20 (rather than 10) percent of students access the Internet using theirmobiles. In the last year, there’s been an increasein the number of people using laptops – as manyas 28 per cent of Poles have a laptop computer(compared to 20 per cent last year). We shouldkeep in mind, however, that the most popular de-vice for accessing the Internet is still a PC.

It turns out that 87 per cent of people who don’tuse the Internet even occasionally do not feelthey miss something. Only 4 per cent of them are

DISCUSSION ON THE RESULTS OF THEWORLD INTERNET PROJECT: POLAND 2011

ARKADIUSZKUSTRAAGORA SARESEARCH AND

ANALYSIS TEAM OF

GAZETA.PL

JAKUBRZEŹNIKTP GROUP

MARKET RESEARCH

DEPARTMENT

OF THE TP GROUP

KUSTRA:A simple divide betweenthose who do and don’t usethe Internet is a grosssimplification. Among the62 per cent of people whouse the Internet, 8 per centare those who use it for lessthan an hour a week, whichmeans: hardly ever

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planning to start using the Internet within thenext six months. As I said earlier, 41 per cent ofpeople who don’t use the Internet have some-body they ask to look different things up on theInternet, that is a proxy user. These results werequite surprising for us. Why do fewer people usethe services of proxy users? Why is the number ofpeople who plan to start using the Internet falling,and the number of people who don’t miss the In-ternet – increasing? We have several hypotheses,for example a pessimistic one – that people whodon’t use the Internet are in a way drifting apart,they lost hope that they will learn to use this medi-um. Another theory is that those who did not usethe Internet last year have split into two groups:some of them already use the Internet, and theother group, more obstinate,are people who refuse to do so.We should remember, however,that we have modified the sam-ple, which could have influ-enced this change. How signif-icant it was, we will certainlyfind out in subsequent surveysin the years to come.

JAKUB RZEŹNIK: What is the position of the In-ternet among other media? Asfar as information is concerned,only the smallest percentage of Poles over theage of 15 view the Internet as an important orrather important source of information. At thesame time, it is the only source of informationwhose significance is growing year by year – from55 to 59 per cent. The other sources of informa-tion remain stable or their importance is de-creasing. It is possible that the increase in the im-portance of the Internet is connected with thegreater number of Internet users in our sample,but nevertheless it seems that this is a growingtrend.

The leading medium, as a source of both en-tertainment and information, is television. As faras sources of entertainment are concerned, wehave observed only one change in comparison withthe last year – it’s again the Internet, which wentup by 8 percentage points. This means that theInternet is catching up with the press and they

are both in the third position. We can wonder iffurther increases will be possible given the sta-ble position of the other sources of communica-tion, information or entertainment, especiallythe dominating role of television.

In the field of communication, the clear leaderis mobile communications, with the importanceof landline telephones declining. The only meansof communication whose importance is going upare those connected with the Internet: electron-ic mail and Internet phone services. Interesting-ly, despite the increase in the number of users ofsocial networking sites, their importance is notgrowing.

We have also asked the interviewees to put fivetypes of media in order, depending on how diffi-

cult it would be for them to givethem up. As in the last year, TVranked first, which means thatPoles are most reluctant to giveup this medium. The next placesare occupied by mobile phones,radio, the Internet and, finally,landline phones. Most interest-ing are the results in individualage groups. In 2010, in the twoyoungest age groups, televisionwas in third place, not first. On-ly teenagers viewed the Inter-net as a medium which would

be most difficult to give up. This year, however,the Internet is the most important medium alsofor people in the age group of 20–24. This may bea sign that a group of digital natives is emergingin Poland, that is people who grow up in the en-vironment of digital technologies, computers andthe Internet. The Internet also becomes increas-ingly popular among the oldest users. This year,in the age category of 50–59, it overtook landlinephones and now ranks fourth.

We also asked Poles over 15 how long they usedTV or the Internet in a week. Just like in the pre-vious year, most people spend long hours in frontof TV, and a little smaller group in front of the In-ternet – more than 10 hours in a week. There’s astrong and interesting trend connected with age– it turns out that the younger the age group, theeasier it is to find people who use the Internetmore than 10 hours a week. The older Poles are,

RZEŹNIK:It turns out that the youngerthe age group, the easier itis to find people who usethe Internet more than10 hours a week. The olderPoles are, the more likelythey are to watch televisionover 10 hours a week

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the more likely they are to watch television over10 hours a week. These proportions are equal inthe age group of 30–39, while last year they wereequal in the group of around 25–39. The Internetis therefore winning new fans.

ARKADIUSZ KUSTRA: We have also examined Poles’ reading habits andthe impact of the Internet on reading traditionalbooks. On average, Poles claim they read six booksa year, while one third of Poles did not read anybook whatsoever last year. Last year the inter-viewees claimed they read seven books a year.Internet users read more – seven books, while peo-ple who don’t use the Internet – four books. Halfof those who don’t use the Internet have not readany book last year, while among Internet usersthis percentage is at the levelof about 20 per cent. Does itmean that the Internet has apositive influence on readingbooks? Rather not. Internetusers are simply a differentgroup from those who don’t usethe Internet: they are better ed-ucated, more wealthy, theyhave probably always readmore. We tried to determinethe influence of the Internet onreading books by asking this year an additionalquestions: how has using the Internet influencedyour reading habits. The majority – 61 per cent –answered that they read more or less the samenumber of books. Interestingly, 19 per cent an-swered that they read fewer books than beforethey started using the Internet, and only 2 percent admitted they read more now. Another in-teresting thing is that among people who don’tuse the Internet the decline in the number ofbooks read was larger, which means that the In-ternet is not the only cause of this drop.

The Internet gives a new life to books, but al-so to other cultural and art products, such as filmsor music – they can be easily distributed, trans-ferred, copied, downloaded. Of course this flowis not always legal, it often happens without theconsent of people holding copyrights to theseworks. This year we tried to examine the scale ofthis phenomenon, by asking the following ques-

tion: “Have you ever used music, films or booksin electronic form which have been obtained inone of the following manners:n downloading from file sharing sites, such asChomikuj.pl,n downloading by means of peer–2–peer soft-ware,n sending via e–mail or instant messenger,n copying with the use of data storage devices(USB flash drives or CDs), etc.”

The figures were quite high. Many people – forexample 39 per cent of Internet users – say theyuse programs downloaded with peer–2–peer soft-ware. Almost half of them use files downloadedfrom file sharing sites such as Chomikuj.pl. As Dr.Mirosław Filiciak pointed out on seeing these re-sults, this is a very delicate issue. We ask the in-

terviewees about behavioursthat are often illegal, so if theydon’t tell us the truth, it’s morelikely that they understate theanswers rather than exaggeratethem.

I think that for the first timewe have captured the scale ofinformal flow of content in theInternet. In total, these ways ofaccessing films, music andbooks are used by exactly two

thirds of Internet users. They are more frequentlymen and young people – teenagers and people be-fore thirty use them on a large scale, more thanhalf of them did it in the last month.

JAKUB RZEŹNIK: Another important activity of Internet users is on-line shopping. The total number of people whodo shopping online – 59 per cent – seems a lot.When we analyse these results more closely, itturns out that more than a half of online shoppersdo it more rarely than once a month. Active shop-pers – people buying things online at least once aweek – are 6 per cent of Internet users. Almost 40per cent of Internet users have not bought any-thing online so far. Women do shopping a littlemore frequently than men, and the most activegroup are people aged 20–39. Things most oftenbought online are clothes and shoes. One in tworespondents claim that they bought something

RZEŹNIK:Active shoppers – peoplebuying things online at leastonce a week – are 6 percent of Internet users.Almost 40 per cent ofInternet users have notbought anything online so far

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from this category in the last year. The next placesare occupied by household appliances, electron-ic devices and books, with drugs and food beingthe least popular categories.

Services look even worse. The most frequent-ly bought services are ticketsand hairdresser or beauty salonappointments. The figures, how-ever, are similar to those for theproducts which are purchasedleast frequently. It can be sup-posed, therefore, that onlineshopping is still not a threat totraditional commerce, at leastnot in all categories.

ARKADIUSZ KUSTRA: Finally, some results relating to the sense of pri-vacy in the Internet. Firstly, 42 per cent of Pol-ish Internet users have no problem with postingprivate information and photos online. This val-ue has decreased but it is still high – the numberof people who have no such concerns is higher

than those who do. However, this trend indicatesthat the recent increase in the popularity of so-cial networking sites in Poland made the Polishpeople more aware of the consequences of up-loading their lives to the Internet. Secondly,

about 30 per cent of Polish In-ternet users are afraid that thegovernment or companies mon-itor our activity online. Pro-fessor Jeffrey Cole, the origi-nator of the World InternetProject, wrote: “today BigBrother is big business.” Largecompanies monitor what con-sumers do online and it seemsthat Polish Internet users are

slowly growing aware of this fact. Thirdly, halfof the Polish Internet users agree with the state-ment that people should not be afraid to criti-cise the government in the Internet – and thisgroup is getting smaller. Only one in two inter-viewees agree with this. In the USA this groupamounts to 70 per cent.

KUSTRA:It can be supposed,therefore, that onlineshopping is still not a threatto traditional commerce, atleast not in all categories

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Thank you, everyone, for wel-coming me here, and also forthe invitation to speak at thisevent.

I congratulate the World In-ternet Project team in Poland.We have been doing surveys likeyou’ve just heard presented fora number of years and I know how difficult it isand how much effort it takes. Thanks also to thesponsors. This survey research is very difficult andexpensive to do. Every additional survey meansthat the value of what you’ve done increases dra-matically because you begin to see real trends asyou have data over time. I’ll speak about some ofthe trends we see in the UK and globally.

I was particularly impressed – and I’m sureyou’ve had the same sense – that the team hasreported to you what they found. They have nottried to impose any particular interpretationon the data. And I think that’s ideal as you seekto develop your own interpretation of the find-ings.

I know you are not as interested in Britain asyou are in Poland, so I’m going to try to brieflypresent some ideas that have come out of thetrends I see in Britain and worldwide. And thenwe can talk about how Poland fits in developingtrends in other countries around the world.

First I am going to talk about the ‘next gene -ration user’.

There is an old Greek aphorism saying “Knowthyself”. The problem within the computing worldis that most people designing a computer systemoften think only about themselves. Many peopleconcerned about better design say that if you de-sign for telecommunications or computing youshould think about the user. “Know thy user” ratherthan “Know thyself”.

I think what we should start thinking about isdesigning for the future, for what the users aremoving toward. “Know thy next generation user”is what I think we should be talking about now.Let me explain.

Our survey is very similar toyour World Internet Project sur-vey – we have the same agegroup, we do multi–stage prob-ability samples, so we can ex-trapolate to Britain as a whole.We have about the same num-ber of people surveyed – about

2 thousand every survey year. We get multiplesponsors, including Ofcom, mobile phone com-pany, O2, ITV, and the British Library. And we area part of World Internet Project. We started in2003, so by 2011, you begin to see major evidenceof trends.

Everyone is talking about trends in internet use.But what are they? Of course they talk about iPads,iPhones, new smartphones and new tablet com-puters or the growth of mobile in a variety ofcountries. And we of course found evidence of anumber of those trends. For example in the UK3/4 of homes have a computer. But we saw growthof the number of computers in households. A lotof homes have three or more computers. I knowwe in this room are different from most people,as we are involved in communications, but thereare times when I’ve had three or four computerson my desk. But 18 per cent of homes in Britainhave three computers or more.

We also noticed growth in the number of de-vices generally. We see an up tick in the handheldreaders – that was the first time we asked aboutreaders in the Oxford Internet Survey and about7 per cent of people have a reader. You can seesignificant growth in the use of tablet computersin the last several years but in the last 2 years thegrowth has been the most dramatic.

We were trying to make sense of this and wesaw two things going on: one is the real growthin the mobile use of the internet. And also growthin the number of devices people are using. Theyare using readers, tablets. You saw growth of lap-top computers in Poland as well. There is moreportability, mobility over multiple devices, peo-ple are using them anywhere, anytime.

NEXT GENERATION USERS: FOCUS ON UK AND POLAND

PROF. WILLIAMDUTTONOXFORD INTERNET

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We have created an indicator that put togeth-er people who have multiple devices and use someof those devices to access the internet in a mo-bile way. And then we have discovered the nextgeneration user, with 44 per cent of users in Britainbeing the next generation users. Then we workedbackwards to estimate how this changed overtime. And you could see that in began in 2007 butit has increased dramatically. Our whole reportis about the rise of the next generation user. AndI think the next generation user is coming inPoland.

It’s interesting to me that this change is goingon amid real stability. On one hand, you see thatactual access to the internet has not changed dra-matically over time. Even in 2003 59 per cent ofpeople in Britain 14 years or older were using theinternet. And it only has come to 73 per cent in2011. The digital divide inBritain is still very significant.More than a quarter of peoplein Britain are not online.

But looking at that stability isdeceptive because what we areseeing is really dramatic trans-formation in the way people areusing the internet. You can seean increase of next generationusers from 13 per cent of theBritish public in 2007 to 44 percent in 2011. Patterns of use ofthe internet change even thoughuse of the internet is not dramatically increasing.

Does it make a difference? I would argue yes,it does. We are finding a very strong relationshipbetween patterns of access and the way peopleuse the internet.

Here is an example. People who are using theinternet as next generation users are much morelikely to be generating content. They are visitingsocial networking sites, posting photos, postingvideos, they have a personal website, they writea blog, they post creative work. All of it being alarge difference between the first and the nextgeneration users. I’m not saying that being a nextgeneration user causes people to use the net dif-ferently. I suppose that if people want to post con-tent and want to use the internet in the Web 2.0–type way, they may be more prone to have mul-

tiple devices and carry them with them. There isan interaction between patterns of access andpatterns of use that is quite important. But clear-ly, the next generation user is much more alignedwith sort of Web 2.0 world in which users are gen-erating content.

Also you can see dramatic differences betweenthe first generation and next generation users intheir use of internet for entertainment. Listen-ing to or downloading music is much more popu-lar among next generation users. They want todownload and listen to music on the move, theydownload, create movies and so forth.

Less dramatic of a difference is in use of theinternet for information. That’s partly becausealmost everybody in Britain is relying more on theinternet for information.

I think it’s a very interesting difference betweenPoland and the UK. In Britainpeople trust the informationthey can get online about asmuch as they do on broadcasttelevision. They actually trustinformation they get onlinemore than newspapers and ra-dio for example. Over 30 percent of people in Britain saythat the internet is essential fortheir information needs, theydon’t know what they would doif they don’t have access to theinternet because that’s the first

place they go for information for almost every-thing they do.

I often call this “the Obama syndrome”. BarackObama when he was elected president wouldn’tknow what to do because they wouldn’t let himhave his Blackberry. He didn’t know what he wasgoing to do without it because it became an es-sential part of his life, so they figured out how hecould use the Blackberry as president.

Information needs are absolutely essential forgrowing proportion of people in Britain. It’s verycurious that people are less trustful about the in-formation they get online in Poland. But it’s a dif-ferent body of content that we are talking about,different language and so forth.

Obviously next generation users are likely touse the internet more on the move – they use it

PROF. DUTTON:We have discovered thenext generation user, with44 per cent of users inBritain being the nextgeneration users. I think thenext generation user iscoming in Poland

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at their neighbour’s house, internet cafes, on themove, at work, at school, at public libraries. Thenext generation user is moving around and usingthe internet instead of being anchored in thehousehold.

Importantly, of course, and consistent with thesurvey in Poland, the PC in a home remains a veryfundamental anchor to the internet. A lot of peo-ple thought that if you move towards applianceslike tablet computers, they would replace the PCand internet would get “dumbed down”, be lessgenerative, less open, less creative. We are find-ing that that is not happening. The PC still re-mains – it could be a laptop, it could be a PC, butthere is still a PC or laptop at home and it remainsthe anchor to the internet. Butyou have also a set of other de-vices that extend and comple-ment what you do at home.Readers, tablets and so forth al-low you to bring the internetwith you and use it seamlesslyelsewhere.

Is it just the “born digital”idea? I don’t like the idea of be-ing “born digital” because I’vebeen using the internet since1974 and I think today’s kidshave no idea of the internet’sevolution. I was using the inter-net before they were a twinklein anybody’s eyes. Clearly it’snot just the younger generationthat is the next generation user.Students and employed areabout equally likely to be next generation users.Where you really see a huge drop off the cliff iswith retired or retirement age people.

Why are some students or some employed peo-ple not next generation users? One of the mostsignificant factors is income. Higher income groupsare much more likely to have multiple devices –smartphones, tablets, readers and laptop com-puters. They are much more mobile and versa-tile.

We have a new digital divide. In Poland a lot ofpeople do not have a computer or access to theinternet and they don’t care about it, don’t thinkit’s of any value. But of course we know that hav-

ing access to the internet follows and reinforcessocial and economic divides in society. More ed-ucated people, wealthier people have access tothe internet and they get advantages. People whodo not have access to the internet do not ’get it’– they don’t understand its benefits.

The internet is an experience technology. It isnot that you can’t explain the internet to some-body, just like you can explain a search engine orsocial networking. But nobody understands thesetechnologies unless they use them. Once they doand have experience using that, they say: “Aha!Wow! I can do this or I can find this.”

That’s the biggest challenge of getting olderpeople or non–users to use the internet because

they don’t understand it untilthey experience it and theydon’t think they need to expe-rience it because they don’tthink they need it. It’s a real co-nundrum of how to get over thisexperience gap.

There are other differences.Next generation users are

more likely than others to payfor services, but not a lot of peo-ple are paying for services. Pay-ing for services is a new trend.We asked in our survey “is it ap-propriate to download musicwithout paying”. Next genera-tion users are more likely toagree. So, next generation usersare more likely to pay for serv-ices but they are also more like-

ly to agree that it’s often appropriate not to pay.Next generation users are more experienced in-ternet users and they realize that there are somethings you pay for and some things you shouldn’t.There are some things that makes sense to pay forand some are charged too much or it is silly to payfor it, like for some types of information.

You can also see that next generation users areless concerned about privacy. Even though theyuse internet more, they generate more user–gen-erated content than first generation users, theyare less concerned about privacy.

It’s again the experience technology – thosewho fear most the internet in terms of privacy or

PROF. DUTTON:The internet is anexperience technology.Nobody understands thesetechnologies unless they usethem. Non–users don'tunderstand it until theyexperience it and they don'tthink they need toexperience it because theydon't think they need it. It'sa real conundrum of how toget over this experience gap

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surveillance are those who have never used theinternet. People who have experience online re-alize they can do certain things without high risk.

But they do not develop a blind trust in the in-ternet or silly optimism. Next generation usersare more likely to share information online in or-der to get a service, like use a credit card to getsomething from a bookseller online.

They are also more supportive of freedom ofexpression but everyone in Britain is basically sup-portive of freedom of expression online. Most peo-ple believe that censorship has no place in a freesociety. Only 30–some per cent believe it is nottrue.

I worked with people at INSEAD and Comscoreon a report for the World Economic Forum. Wedid an online survey called the Global Values Proj-ect. We surveyed 13 countries (Australia, NewZealand, Brazil, Canada, China,France, Germany, Italy, India,Mexico, South Africa, Spain, USand UK). What I found is theemergence of a new internetworld with the center of gravi-ty shifting to Asia and rapidlydeveloping countries.

There is a developing globalconsensus on values and atti-tudes but some users in rapidlydeveloping countries and in Asiaare even more supportive ofsome basic values in the inter-net such as freedom of expres-sion than are people in the oldinternet world. Those new usersin the developing world and in Asia are actuallymore innovative and active than users in the oldinternet world. Asia has now over 40 per cent ofinternet users globally. The US used to be the cen-ter of the internet world and it still has high lev-els of penetration but there are more Chinese on-line now than there are Americans on the planet.North America and Europe are declining as a pro-portion of internet users relative to the rest ofthe world.

In every country we surveyed most of the userssupported freedom of expression online. Chinawas maybe the only country where there was asignificant proportion of people who disagreed

that access to the internet should be a funda-mental right for all people, but the percentageof people who were disagreeing was very small,less than 5 per cent.

What’s interesting is that, while the new in-ternet countries, such as India, South Africa, Mex-ico, China, have actually smaller proportion ofusers, their support of freedom of expression washigher than in many of the old internet countries,Germany, for example. I think that’s positive newsbecause that means that the new center of grav-ity of the internet is not going to necessarily re-sult in a change that would undermine the free-dom of expression and other values that are im-portant to the internet.

You also see that China, Brazil, India have a dra-matically high percentage of people who producecontent online daily or weekly. Who’s really low?

The UK, Australia, New Zealandand even the US and Canada.The new internet world usersare really actively creating con-tent, they are also actively us-ing the internet daily or week-ly for communications.

Is Poland in the new internetworld or the old internet world?

I think you are probably inthe old internet world withmost of the rest of Europe.You’re more focused on Web1.0 applications but I think youare moving in the direction ofthe new internet world, yourusers are becoming more ac-

tive. But there is still uncertainty about freedomof expression, whether the internet is the trust-ed media. But it’s clear that Poland is in the top10 nations of Europe in terms of access to theinternet.

Digital divides like that in Britain are still an is-sue, in fact we are seeing new digital divides likeemergence of the next generation user.

There is healthy scepticism towards the inter-net in Poland. There is still not a decision madewhether the internet is essential aspect of the in-formation environment in Poland, as opposed tosome other countries. There is concern over thekey issues – privacy, trust, freedom of expression.

PROF. DUTTON:People who have experienceonline realize they can docertain things without highrisk. But they do notdevelop a blind trust in theinternet or silly optimism

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It’s very worrisome that youhave sense of being watched on-line and I think that could bechanging globally. If Jeff Cole isright and “Big Brother is big busi-ness”, this could have a hugechilling effect on the future ofthe internet. It could be ab-solutely a disaster if people donot try to protect the internet asa place where you can have se-cure, anonymous, free and open expression andget access to information you want and need.

But I think there is clearly evidence that Polandis at the tipping point – younger people in Polandare beginning to use the internet in ways that arecloser to the next generation user.

Poland is also different interms of the amount of infor-mation that is available in Pol-ish content is probably signif-icantly less than in English con-tent online. And as more andmore content is being pro-duced for the internet and dig-itally through other media, theinternet is going to reach a tip-ping point where it begins to

be as essential for everyday information as it isin other countries.

I would put dollars to donuts that in one or twoyears you’ll see rise in next generation users inPoland. I can’t wait to see what happens in thefuture of the internet in your country.

PROF. DUTTON:I would put dollars to donutsthat in one or two yearsyou'll see rise in nextgeneration users in Poland.I can't wait to see whathappens in the future of theinternet in your country

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DR. JAN ZAJĄC: We’ll try to answer the eternalquestion about Internet inPoland: what it looks like, whereit is going, what are the char-acteristic features of the PolishInternet and Internet users. Butfirst I’d like us to talk aboutwhat Prof. Dutton referred toat the end of his speech, that isabout the issue of next genera-tion Internet users. Is such a cat-egory significant and is it sig-nificant for Poland? As many as60 per cent of Poles use the In-ternet and there is a growingneed to divide them somehow.Prof. Dutton presented an in-teresting idea. Apart from tra-ditional devices, next genera-tion users very often access theInternet using different kinds ofmobile devices. They are muchmore likely to create their owncontent and post it online. Itseems that many of these dif-ferences can be explained oth-erwise, for example by refer-ring to basic demographic dif-ferences. The new generationof users are mainly people whoare younger, richer, who havebetter Internet skills. Can youreally see the category of nextgeneration users in Poland?

DR. JUSTYNA HOFMOKL: I, personally, like this idea very much and I be-lieve that such a group of people may emerge inPoland. This is an incredibly interesting group ofpeople, who drive the development of the Inter-net. They are creative, active, they understandthis medium, they can use it for different pur-poses, not only to have some fun or get in touch

with friends. They are also con-scious citizens who go online togather information about what’sgoing on in the world and intheir immediate environment.

At Centrum Cyfrowe, MirosławFiliciak, Alek Tarkowski and I con-duct research on alternativeforms of exchanging content andthis is where we researched In-ternet users. Some of their fea-tures indicate that a group ofnext generations users is emerg-ing in Poland. In this group, 39per cent of the interviewees saidthey accessed the Internet usingmobile devices.

But if we look at the results ofthe survey we are discussing to-day, it’s true that there aren’tmany active users to be seen. Webelieve that the Internet makespeople more active, that it sup-ports democracy, that it lets peo-ple express themselves, fulfilthemselves, be creative. Unfor-tunately, these results do notshow it. We can worry aboutthat, but we must also remem-ber that we the population of In-ternet users is still not fully de-veloped. The website Nasza–Klasa did more for popularisingthe Internet in Poland than allkinds of social campaigns or pro-grammes of creating Internet ac-cess points. But Nasza–Klasa is a

rather passive social networking site. People joinedit to meet their old friends, but that’s basically it.For me it’s just the beginning of a long way.

DR. DOMINIK BATORSKI: I’m a little more sceptical about next generationusers. Is it something else than just heavy users?

DISCUSSION OF POLISH INTERNET RESEARCHERS

MODERATOR: DR. JAN ZAJĄCUNIVERSITY OF

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PARTICIPANTS: DR. JUSTYNAHOFMOKLCENTRUM

CYFROWE,PROJEKT POLSKA

DR. DOMINIKBATORSKIUNIVERSITY OF

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DR. MAREKTROSZYŃSKICOLLEGIUM

CIVITAS

DR. MIROSŁAWFILICIAKWARSAW SCHOOL

OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

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There are people in Poland for whom the Inter-net is the main medium. According to the WorldInternet Project, these are more than a dozen percent of Poles.

When it comes to ways of using the Internet,what I find most important is not the intensity ofuse but what people actually do on the Internet.On the one hand, we have users who use it chieflyfor practical purposes, to develop their interests,to work or study, while on the other hand there’sa whole group of people who treat it mainly as asource of entertainment. This first group are main-ly users who are better educated, come from larg-er towns, usually a little younger.The second group are mainlypeople who are not so well edu-cated, come from less wealthyhouseholds. They too can use theInternet very intensively, butthey use it mainly for entertain-ment, not to improve their lifesituation. People who spendsome time online but can’t usethe Internet to improve their lifesituation are not very much dif-ferent from those who have noInternet access at all.

DR. MAREK TROSZYŃSKI: I’m convinced that it is necessary to categoriseInternet users. It is getting more and more diffi-cult to say that Internet users think this or that.That’s why we need to perceive Internet users asa community which is varied inside. I think thatthe key dimension, probably in line with Prof. Dut-ton’s idea, is using the mobile Internet. What isthe Internet really? Is it a communication medi-um or a social space? When we think about peo-ple who come to work in the morning, read andsend e–mails, make some personal arrangementsonline, and then turn the computer off, we aretalking about a communication medium. Butthere’s also an increasingly more prominent groupof people who transfer at least a part of their so-cial lives to the Internet, for whom the Internetis a social space, who have a strong need to beonline. “If you’re not on Facebook, you don’t ex-ist” – this saying shows us this line of thinking.The Internet reality is as real as the social reali-

ty, this is where these people maintain their so-cial relations.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: The question is: what was first? Do these peoplehave such needs and satisfy them online, or dothey use the Internet more and more intensivelyand find new ways of using it?

DR. MAREK TROSZYŃSKI: I think that the key factor is the easy access totechnology, real possibilities that people have,the fact that we can hold a tablet computer in-

stead of a sheet of paper, thatI can use my mobile to updatemy status or take photographsof this conference and showthem to all my friends.

DR. MIROSŁAW FILICIAK: We certainly need to categoriseInternet users, because com-paring a person who uses theInternet once a week to some-body who takes their laptop tothe toilet with them doesn’tmake much sense. We need at-tractive metaphors. I have no-ticed that although I have often

criticised the ‘digital natives’ metaphor, as it ismisleading – it concentrates on the age, peoplewho were born in the Internet era – I very oftenuse it myself, as it is very convenient. I think thatthe idea of next generation users is similar in thisrespect. This next generation suggests that thebasic difference is age. Of course it very often is,but not always.

In the research conducted at Centrum Cyfrowe,which Justyna mentioned earlier, we used an on-line questionnaire and it turned out that all in-dexes connected with buying and reading bookswere 100–200 per cent higher than we usually as-sume for the Polish population. But if we look atthe distribution across different age groups, it issurprisingly flat. Not only young people are ac-tive consumers of online content.

We also have to be careful not to fetishize theInternet, because when we’re talking about us-ing the Internet to improve the quality of life we

DR. FILICIAK:We also have to be carefulnot to fetishize theInternet, because whenwe’re talking about usingthe Internet to improve thequality of life we may bereferring to a group ofpeople who would raise thisquality using other tools, if there were no Internet

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may be referring to a group of people who wouldraise this quality using other tools, if there wereno Internet.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: I think that an important thing is also the idea of‘invisible technology’, that is technology that wetake for granted, such as electricity. I think thatcomputers and the Internet have become invisi-ble technology only for a small part of the Polishsociety. It seems to me that most users still be-long to the group who sometimes log on to the In-ternet, not to the group of people who are online24/7. It is well–known that thereare fewer mobile technologyusers in Poland than in the UK,especially when we’re talkingabout smartphones.

A very interesting aspect ofthe idea of next generationusers is also the large propor-tion of people who create theirown content. The results of allearlier surveys, not only thoseconducted in Poland, clearlydemonstrated that although theInternet is the technology offreedom, creativity, as ManuelCastells has been saying formore than a decade, only a verysmall percentage of users actu-ally create anything, even on Web 2.0 websites.Most of them only watch. The Polish results showus that the percentage of those who create andupload their own content in the Internet is stillrelatively low. In Britain this percentage is muchhigher. The unique research conducted byMirosław Filiciak and Justyna Hofmokl suggestedthat there are such people in Poland. Dominik Ba-torski, referring to nation–wide research, demon-strates that they are a marginal group.

DR. DOMINIK BATORSKI: It’s true that there’s a number of such people inPoland, but it doesn’t really show that using theInternet makes them much more active and readyto generate much more content. What Mirosławsaid is very important here: it’s not the technol-ogy that changes a lot, it’s what people have in-

side – their education, motivation, needs, cul-tural capital.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: Professor, would you like to add something?

PROF. WILLIAM DUTTON: I have heard some very good criticism and somesupport for my theory. I’m glad that it arousessome controversy. Of course I agree that we shouldtry to categorise Internet users and we’re tryingto figure out what is the best category. Nobodysuggested – that’s a positive thing – to divide them

into broadband users and notbroadband users. In Britaineverybody uses broadband, soit becomes almost irrelevant.

Are next generation users on-ly heavy users? I don’t think so.We have to get away from a tel-evision paradigm, which is allabout how much time you spendusing different devices. In thecase of the Internet it doesn’tmatter how much time youspend online. You can watch TVfor X hours a day and not usethe Internet even once at thattime, but imagine that you gosomewhere to the end of theworld and you don’t need to

worry about anything because you can always re-ceive an e–mail or a message. I may even not usethe Internet, but I know that in case anything hap-pens I’m in touch.

TV and the Internet don’t compete with eachother as much as people would like them to. Theydon’t compete because they complement eachother. The Internet changes the media ecology:the Internet feeds on the press, telephones, TV,and television more and more often uses the In-ternet. We knew what happened to Gaddafi, whatwas happening during the Arab spring thanks toaccounts and films which were posted online.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: We have heard much about the influence of theInternet on participation in culture, not only withregard to creating own content, but also with ref-

PROF. DUTTON:Are next generation usersonly heavy users? I don’tthink so. We have to getaway from a televisionparadigm, which is all abouthow much time you spendusing different devices. The Internet changes themedia ecology: the Internetfeeds on the press,telephones, TV, andtelevision more and moreoften uses the Internet

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erence to participating in culture outside the In-ternet world, when the Internet is the source ofinformation about concerts, events, new books,music albums, or when the Internet becomes aplace where these goods can be accessed, also il-legally. We have also heard that users have newcreative possibilities but not all of them use them.What does it look like in light of research con-ducted in Poland?

DR. MIROSŁAW FILICIAK: The reason for conducting our research was a dis-appointment. A few years ago all of us expectedthat the levels of Internet users’ creativity wouldgrow. We know that this is stilla marginal group, although ourdefinition of creativity in the In-ternet has become so wide thatit’s almost enough to post anemoticon on somebody’s blog,and still it turns out that noteverybody is doing that, noteverybody is posting comments.That’s why we decided to ex-amine not how Internet usersgenerate content, but how theycomment it, particularly howthey redistribute content cre-ated by others, often using pira-cy practices.

Two years ago we conducteda survey with the research de-partment of Gazeta.pl, called“TV without TV sets”, whichtold us that there’s a huge groupof people in Poland who regu-larly watch American TV serieswhich can’t be watched legally in Poland. Theyjust download them from the Internet. We want-ed to have a look at this informal flow and mapthis informal media economy.

The results of our research surprisingly coinci-dent with what we have seen here and are simi-lar to the results of the Social Diagnosis survey.You could say that about one in four, one in fiveor one in six Internet users – depending on thecontent type – download “free”, to call it mildly,content on a regular basis. But when we ask abouthaving downloaded such content at any time in

the past, about contact with such activities orabout indirect contact, that is using content down-loaded by other household members, it turns outthat these percentages reach, or even exceed,50 per cent. Interestingly, just like Prof. Duttonsaid, next generation users are a little more like-ly to pay than first generation users, but at thesame time the increase in the reluctance to payis even higher.

This is a large group, around a half of the Pol-ish Internet users. If we compare them with thosePoles who are generally interested in the activeuse of cultural content, that is buying books, filmsetc., it turns out – I admit it was a bit shocking

for us – that the informal sphereof culture circulation is similar,or maybe even a little larger,than the formal one.

DR. JUSTYNA HOFMOKL: I would like to add that thesepeople not only exchange cul-tural content, including Ameri-can TV series obtained in an il-legal way, informally, but alsospend money on legal CDs, goto concerts, buy books. What’smore, they use such tradition-al forms of cultural exchange aslibraries. It seems to me thatthis is the Polish group of nextgeneration users.

I only ask myself if it is themwe should focus on. They arethose who are already “inside”.A whole different question iswhat to do with this huge group

of people who are not interested in the Internetand, as we can see, are not willing to change theirmind. I believe this question is more importantthan the issue of next generation users.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: For many people this is a shocking discovery: theycan’t believe that people sit in front of the In-ternet, watch films, listen to MP3 music, and thengo to concerts, theatre, cinema – offline. Profes-sor, have you seen similar results in other coun-tries?

DR. BATORSKI:Users must have a wholespectrum of choices howthey want to consume giveninformation, how they wantto listen to music, whenthey want to watch films.it’s the same people whodownload most contentfrom the Internet and at thesame time most often go tothe cinema, most often payfor this content. These arepeople who have thegreatest demand but at thesame time they want to consume this content ina way that’s convenient for them

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PROF. WILLIAM DUTTON: Yes, I was surprised by the UK results as well. But,as you said, the dominant proportion of peopledon’t want to pay for content. This contradictionis very interesting.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: Do you think that they can be made to pay or isthe battle already lost?

PROF. WILLIAM DUTTON: I think that one of the critical issues in the futureof the Internet and e–commerce is to figure outbetter business models that can be applied to thenews, to music, and so forth. Unfortunately, ratherthan looking for new businessmodels that are appropriate inthe Internet age, people are try-ing to hold these old businessmodels using law. That createsa really terrible atmosphere inwhich we try to delegitimise ac-tivities that are viewed as ap-propriate by most people.Hopefully, the World InternetProject and other groups can fo-cus more on thinking about busi-ness models that would beviewed appropriately by peo-ple.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: It seems to me that in the Polish reality the dis-course has long been dominated by the large pub-lishers who cry that downloading music from theInternet is serious piracy. Much less is said aboutother examples of young artists for whom the pos-sibility of downloading files means an opportuni-ty to make a career. These are people who thinkabout their career, about their works in a com-pletely different way and even encourage Inter-net users to download their works, share themwith others.

DR. MIROSŁAW FILICIAK: The topic is controversial, but the issues con-nected with piracy must indeed be thoughtthrough. I wanted to bring up one more topic.When we were analysing the results of our sur-

vey we had a lot of problems with the argumentwhich always appears in Polish discussions onpiracy, that Poles are corrupted by communismand as post–Soviet citizens we don’t respect in-tellectual property. This is contradicted for ex-ample by the Swedish edition of the World In-ternet Project, where we can read that sharingfiles on the Internet is an important part ofyoung Swedes’ culture, just like writing blogs isimportant for the culture of young Swedishwomen. And we must remember that Sweden,and generally Scandinavian countries, are pre-sented in different analyses as the most legal-istic countries. It is clear that this is not just anissue of respect for the law, but a kind of para-

digm change.

DR. DOMINIK BATORSKI: Users want to decide for them-selves what they consume,when and how. How they wantto receive certain content, inwhat conditions, using whatdevices and at what time. Tosome extent, the problem ofpiracy follows from the factthat business does not respondwell to this demand. Businesstries to maintain constant waysof delivering content, sayingto the users: we will give you

this content, you can use it so and so. We needother models. Users must have a whole spec-trum of choices how they want to consume giv-en information, how they want to listen to mu-sic, when they want to watch films. If we un-derstand this, it becomes clear that it’s the samepeople who download most content from the In-ternet and at the same time most often go tothe cinema, most often pay for this content.These are people who have the greatest demandbut at the same time they want to consume thiscontent in a way that’s convenient for them.And because they often don’t have it, they re-sort to piracy.

DR. MAREK TROSZYŃSKI: I agree with Dominik. The Internet gives muchmore power to users, but what we’re dealing with

DR. TROSZYŃSKI:Traditional thinking patternsdon’t fit well to the Internetreality. Internet users wantto decide for themselveswhat is legal and what is not, what are the limits of freedom. The question is how this organism canregulate itself

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is a reality which is separate from the onlineworld. I have similar experiences with the issuesof freedom of expression and hate speech. Fromthe perspective of our old world, there’s an in-explicable contradiction of answers: on the onehand, people declare full support for freedom ofexpression, on the other hand almost three infour interviewees answer that insults on the In-ternet should be punished, hate speech must notbe allowed on the Internet. On the one hand, fullfreedom of expression, on the other, however,we should keep an eye on those people and tryto punish them. This shows that these tradition-al thinking patterns don’t fit well to the Internetreality. Internet users want to decide for them-selves what is legal and what is not, what are thelimits of freedom.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: We have smoothly switched toanother topic: privacy, anonymi-ty and the related issue of of-fensive content or hate speech.Privacy, anonymity – is it at allpossible today? At a recent con-ference celebrating the tenth an-niversary of the Oxford InternetInstitute, the words ‘privacy isover’ could be heard in every sec-ond speech. On the one hand,people see that they upload var-ious personal content to the In-ternet or websites such as Face-book. On the other hand, they appreciate the pos-sibility to express their opinions, thoughts of makeobscene statements freely. Who is a real threat toprivacy? Jeffrey Cole argues it is the big business.

Manuel Castells and many other researchers,however, keep saying that it is the governmentsthat are all the time trying to monitor the Inter-net or at least watch closely what’s going on there.In Poland this has been clearly visible in the lastmonths, when a lot of legislative initiatives andsimilar projects appeared.

Marek, what do you think about privacy inthe Internet and about what should be avail-able, acceptable online? To what extent shouldexpression of political opinions, attitudes bemonitored?

DR. MAREK TROSZYŃSKI: This question could be reversed: who are we re-ally afraid of? We are more and more concernedabout the Internet being monitored by the gov-ernment. In the first edition of the Polish WorldInternet Project the main threat to people’s pri-vacy were clearly corporations. Now more andmore people fear that our activity could be mon-itored by the government. This is a very broad,philosophical question: about the limits of free-dom of expression and other similar issues fun-damental for the functioning of a society. Itseems completely legitimate to me to view theInternet as a public sphere, that is a spherewhere we should be responsible for what we say.On the one hand, we have this contradiction

which I have already men-tioned: Internet users supportfreedom of expression, but areagainst offending others; onthe other hand, we can seehate speech or hostile languageon the Internet and attemptsmade by political parties to usethe Internet for their own in-terests. The question is howthis organism can regulate it-self.”

DR. DOMINIK BATORSKI: Just like we can’t talk about In-ternet users as a whole, weshould not talk about the In-

ternet as one space. It would be more sensibleto talk about different spaces within the Inter-net. The Internet is more and more connectedwith everyday life and things that happen offline,so we need such spaces where there’s noanonymity and where the privacy is much small-er. On the other hand, we need such places inthe Internet, where there’s much more privacyand anonymity. We should ask not whether pri-vacy or anonymity are necessary in the Internetbut rather how different spaces within the In-ternet should be organised.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: Could you give us an example of a space whereyou think anonymity is very important?

DR. BATORSKI:We shouldn’t talk about theInternet as one space. It would be more sensible totalk about different spaceswithin the Internet. We need such places in theInternet, where there’smuch more privacy andanonymity

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DR. DOMINIK BATORSKI: Some spaces related to public debate should becompletely anonymous, especially when we’retalking about authoritarian regimes or workerswho are afraid to talk openly about breaking thelaw in their companies.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: Anonymous discussions on political topics are main-ly held by youth sections of political parties andcompanies hired by parties to conduct negativecampaigns. Regular users usually don’t want tohave anything to do with it, because it is gener-ally considered to be a dirty business. On the oth-er hand, more and more sensible discussions aremoved to environments where everybody usestheir own name, one of the rea-sons being the intention to raisethe quality of the debate.Though I agree about the de-mands as such, I don’t really seean environment or place in theInternet where such anonymousdiscussions could be held in asensible way.

DR. MAREK TROSZYŃSKI: I agree. Most of us will probablyagree that discussions held on Polish Internet fo-rums are far from reasonable. And this means thatwe are retreating from this area, leaving the pub-lic space to youth sections of political parties orcompanies that run their marketing activity there,or people with extreme views who flood the Inter-net with hateful statements.

DR. JAN ZAJĄC: At the end of the discussion I would like to askeverybody to sum up with one or two sentenceswhat you found especially important, interest-ing. From my point of view, these are two issues.First of all, many people emphasised that we needto stop thinking in the terms of Internet users asa homogenous group, we should think about dif-ferent subgroups in this category. One proposalis the group of next generation users. The secondissue which I find important, and still not well un-derstood, is the fact that creativity in the Inter-net is still a rare phenomenon, with commenting

and sharing content being much more frequentforms of activity.

DR. DOMINIK BATORSKI: I would like to refer to one thing we haven’t dis-cussed, namely a change in the structure of In-ternet users in the last years. In 2003 the per-centage of Internet users in the age group 16–24amounted to 40 per cent, now it’s 19 per cent.Eight years ago, 30 per cent of Internet userswere pupils and students. Today they make uponly 14 per cent. This change is dramatic andhas a large influence on what the Internet lookslike, what content is produced for it, what con-tent is published on the web. It is increasinglymore adapted to an average user. The issue of

privacy and anonymity also re-sponds less and less to theneeds of those users who havehad long experience in the In-ternet, those who are bettereducated, richer. Rather, it an-swers the needs of more aver-age users. The Internet andhow it is regulated will changein reaction to the changes inthe structure and needs of peo-ple who use it. We will see this

both here, in Poland, and in the Internationalarena, due to the fact that the percentage of In-ternet users from our culture is constantly de-creasing, as Prof. Dutton pointed out.

DR. JUSTYNA HOFMOKL: Our discussion shows that Internet users must beresearched, described and analysed, because theyare not a homogenous group. Today talking aboutaccess to the Internet is certainly not enough. Weneed to take care of Internet users if we want toshape this group. Research shows that Polish In-ternet users hardly use any services online. Onlya small percentage of people participated in thelast census online, people don’t send tax returnsvia the Internet, although it’s really getting easierall the time. This means that they are not evenaware of these services. There should be morepressure on offices to take more initiatives of thiskind, because the Internet should enter not onlythe world of entertainment but also the sphere

DR. HOFMOKL:We expect Internet users tobe active and creative, butthey must have somethingto create things from, theymust have access to sourcematerials

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of practical life. Another thing is availability ofPolish content. We expect Internet users to beactive and creative, but they must have some-thing to create things from, they must have ac-cess to source materials.

DR. MAREK TROSZYŃSKI: Paradoxically, although more and more of us usethe Internet, our online worldand our offline reality are grow-ing more and more apart. Thereason for this may be the factthat we have increasingly larg-er expectations from the Inter-net. It would seem that the In-ternet could be a great tool todo research on candidates in therecent parliamentary elections.It turns out, however, that againover 90 per cent of the voteswere cast for people from thefirst places in the candidatelists. The potential of the In-ternet does not translate into our real lives aswell as I would expect. We also have an impor-tant cognitive problem, because we saw in sev-

eral cases that people answered things whichseemed radically contradictory. As a researcher Ican say: our questions are not right, our cate-gories do not fit this world.

DR. MIROSŁAW FILICIAK: As a culture researcher I am happy because thisis one of those surveys which increases our knowl-

edge on the flow of culturalcontent in the Internet. I amglad that this research is regu-larly repeated and that now wehave not only the “Social Diag-nosis” but also other surveyswhich let us monitor thechanges of certain trends acrosstime and compare the resultswith other countries. Thegrowth of our knowledge aboutwhat goes on in the Polish In-ternet gives us hope that regu-lations relating to the Internetin Poland, but also politicians’

attitude to the Internet and business models willbe based on knowledge and recognition of reali-ty rather than ideological assumptions.

DR. TROSZYŃSKI:We saw in several cases thatpeople answered thingswhich seemed radicallycontradictory. As a researcher I can say:our questions are not right,our categories do not fit this world

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Technology

2011 Discussion of WIP Findings on Poland