Computer Literacy, Online Experience or Socioeconomic Characteristics – What are the Main Determinants of Internet Adoption and Internet Usage?

In this paper, we analyze the Internet adoption/usage decisions. To this end, we estimate a sample selection model. In the first stage, we analyze whether the individuals have adopted the Internet; in the second stage, we analyze the Internet usage diversity given adoption. We show that low income and less-educated people are less likely to have adopted the Internet, but they do not have a less diversified Internet usage given adoption. Similar results have been highlighted by Goldfarb and Prince (2008). Furthermore, we show that online experience is a powerful explanation of usage diversity, suggesting that the diffusion of information about the advantages offered by the Internet is partly attributable to the use of the Internet itself.