Internet in Everyday Life: Profiling Individual Behaviour in the Field of Online Experience

Abstract [eng]

This essay proposes a study of the activities carried out by individuals on the Internet. Using the data of ISTAT’s annual sample survey on ICT usage in households and by individuals, the aim is to explore, through the multivariate methods, its association with the social, cultural and demographic characteristics of individuals. Although the universal image of people always on, tethered and networked prevail, the active and creative Internet usage remains a minority phenomenon, not so much for a physical gap but for a more complex set of values, culture and lifestyles (or habitus). Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis have shown the impact of the socio-cultural characteristics of individuals, and, above all, the level education attained, in profiling individual behaviour in the field of online experience set both by the degree of digitalization and by the type of online activities carried out.