Demographics and Behavior of the Chilean Internet Population

This paper presents the results of a study of Internet users in the city of Santiago. A random sample of 1145 households representing three strata of population was selected. The results show that the typical Internet user is young, male, highly educated, with a high income level, connecting to the Internet from the place of work or study, spending most of the time on-line browsing through the World Wide Web. As far as the use of the Net for commercial transactions is concerned, only 10% of users have bought something on-line. It appears from the study that, for the time being, the Internet is more useful as a communication medium for building relationships and generating leads than it is to buy or sell products.