Impact of economic, cultural, and social factors on Internet usage in selected European and Asian countries

Rates and patterns of Internet use, particularly cross-nationally, are difficult to measure. Typically, the metrics only involve extrapolating the user population from numbers of Internet hosts. These methodologies miss the influences of economic, institutional, political, and social/cultural variables believed to be so important to technology usage in some countries. The current investigation sought to determine if these variables do play a significant role in Internet usage in selected countries. Preliminary findings suggest that these four variables do interact in a complex fashion and that further development of a more accurate predictive model that takes these additional variables into account is warranted.