Measuring Practices of Internet Use in Social Sciences: a Review of Major Approaches

Abstract

The article reviews approaches towards measuring practices of Internet use and highlights major pros and cons of described indicators. The examples of research questions addressed using different indicators are also provided. All instruments are classified into macro-indicators that allow describing Internet penetration in a country or a region and micro-indicators that allow estimating frequency of Internet use by individuals. Micro-indicators can also be classified into indicators based on automatically collected data and indicators based on survey data.