Survey Of RSM members' internet use

In June 2000 a survey was sent by post to the RSM's 17623 members in order to find out how they felt about using the internet.
1694 (9.6%) people responded.

PROFILE

AGE RANGE
41% over sixty; 23% in fifties; 20% in forties; 12% in thirties; 3% under thirty.
The full range of ages can be seen on the graph below.

LOCATION
The location of the respondents was biased in favour of UK members, since they were able to return the survey postage free; however, there was still a surprisingly high response rate from the rest of the world:
70% of survey respondents were from the UK (77% of all RSM members are from the UK)
7% were from the USA or Canada (12% of all members are from the US or Canada)
5% come from Europe or the rest of world (12% of all members are from these areas).

ACCESS TO THE INTERNET

84% of the respondents had access to the internet either at home or at work (23 people via their WAP phone). Only 0.5% of respondents had NO access to a computer; nearly all were over sixty years old. Only one person under 50 had NO computer at all.
WAP USERS
WAP users were mainly in their fifties (50%); 23% were in their thirties; 18% were over 60 and 9% in their forties. No under thirties had a WAP phone.

WHICH DOCTORS ARE ONLINE?

BY AGE:
73% of over sixties were online
90% in fifies were online
92% in forties were online
85% in thirties were online
98% of under thirties were online

BY LOCATION:
93% of North American (USA & Canada) respondents were online
89% of "Rest of World" respondents were online
85% of European respondents were online
83% of UK respondents were online
Compare this with Netvalue's latest statistics.

BY SPECIALTY:
Not every specialty was represented in enough numbers to give meaningful statistics. Of those where the numbers were reasonably high, the following percentages had access to the internet:
97% of pathologists
93% of endocrinologists
93% of oncoologists
90% of cardiologists
88% of paediatricians
88% of neurosurgeons
83% of anaesthesists
82% of GPs
78% of surgeons
72% of psychiatrists
63% of gynaecologists
63% of retired members

WHEN ARE THEY ONLINE?
Of those saying when they accessed the net, 42% accessed at home; 8% at work; 50% at home and work.

WHICH BROWSERS ARE USED?

SOFTWARE
Of all those who answered (see graph, below):
70% use Internet Explorer
24% use Netscape
5% use AOL
1% used various others eg Opera or Compuserve
NB 6% used both Netscape and IE.

VERSION
We also asked what version browser people used. Of those that answered, 96% used version 4 or above.

WEBLITERACY & CONFIDENCE USING THE WEB

In order to compare respondents' own confidence levels online with their actual ability, we asked several questions:

1) We asked if members were confident using the internet, and whether they wanted to find out more.
4% did not know or care about the internet (over 80% were the over-sixties)
45% were curious to learn more (half were over sixty)
61% described themselves as "confident or fairly confident" about using the net.

2) Next we asked if respondents could type in a given URL.
Of those who replied:
86% said yes, they could
6% weren't sure about it
8% said not at all.

3) Then we asked what happened when members did an online search.
Of those who replied:
Half were confident that they could perform an accurate search.
31% said they came up with "too many irrelevant results".
18% said they couldn't find what they wanted at all. (64% of these people were over sixty).

4) We also asked if they had a favourite search engine.
Of those that replied, 9% did not understand the question (eg specified their internet service provider rather than a valid search engine).

ARE DOCTORS REALLY WEBLITERATE?

Our definition of "confident" web users was that they should answer "yes" to typing in a URL; they should know what a search engine is; and they should answer "yes" to being able to perform accurate searches.
796 people fulfilled these criteria - 47% of the survey.
This compares to the 920 (54% of the survey) who perceived themselves as "confident".
Of those who describe themselves as confident, only 77% fulfilled our criteria for webliteracy described above.

WHO ARE THE WEB USERS WHO CLAIM TO BE "CONFIDENT"?
40% of over 60s
59% of those in fifties
62% of those in forties;
76% of those in thirties;
80% of under thirties

WHO IS ACTUALLY "WEBLITERATE"?
36% of over 60s
51% of those in fifties
53% of those in forties
66% of those in thirties
70% of those under thirty

See graph, below, for a comparison of these figures. It is interesting to note that the over-sixties have the most accurate perception of their own abilities.

ONLINE EDUCATION

In order to assess the demand for online education, we asked:

1) Would people like an online element of an RSM conference?
Of the 97% who replied:
22% said yes ONLY if they could get CPD
54% said they would be interested regardless of CPD accreditation
24% said they would not be interested - 65% of these were over sixty.

2) Would people like a fully online version of an RSM conference?
Of the 96% who replied:
21% said yes ONLY if they could get CPD
51% said they would be interested regardless of CPD accreditation
28% said they would not be interested - 58% of these were over sixty.

3) Where would people do their online learning?
Only 73% replied to this question. Of their responses:
49% would only learn at home
8% would only learn at work
43% would learn at home and at work.

4) Are members comfortable with paying online using credit cards?
96% replied. Of these:
42% were completely happy with online credit card payments
30% had some worries or concerns, but would still do it
19% would NOT pay online with their card (the majority of them over sixty)
9% were unsure.

See piechart, below.