Int. J.

Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhcs

Understanding the new digital divide—A typology of Internet

users in Europe
Petter Bae Brandtzæga,n, Jan Heima, Amela Karahasanovića,b
a
SINTEF ICT, P.O. Box 124—Blindern, N-0314 Oslo, Norway
b
Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Received 9 September 2009; received in revised form 29 October 2010; accepted 18 November 2010
Communicated by K.S. Severinson Eklundh
Available online 25 November 2010

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to better understand the digital divide by identifying the variety of ways in which people in Europe use the
Internet. First, by using cluster analysis on survey data (N= 12,666/age: 16–74 years) from Eurostat on Internet usage in Norway, Sweden,
Austria, the UK, and Spain, we identified five user types: Non-Users (42%), Sporadic Users (18%), Instrumental Users (18%),
Entertainment Users (10%), and Advanced Users (12%). These user types differ in their distributions over country, age, access, household
members, and gender. An alarming finding is that 60% of the population was found to be either Non-Users or Sporadic Users, which
reflects a large digital divide in Europe. Second, we conducted a logistic regression to identify the predictors for different user types.
We found on a cross-national level that age and Internet access are the most salient predictors, whereas gender and household seems to be
less relevant. However, the amount of variance explained differs between countries. We also suggested a future increase in the digital divide
between the identified user types—a user type divide. The user typology and the identified predictors might help researchers, practitioners,
and decision makers to better understand Internet users and the multi-complex variations among individuals and countries. This knowledge
will also serve as a means to understand the digital divide by providing a more nuanced perspective on Europeans’ unequal usage of the
Internet and participation in an increasingly digital society.
& 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Digital divide; Users; User types; Internet; Participation

1. Introduction the growing development and distribution of the Internet

Internet usage can provide an avenue for new relationships,
facilitate continuing education, encourage personal growth,
create hobbies and innovations, and re-define careers (Cohen-
det, 2003). However, the new digital divide, including not only
the access divide but the imbalance of Internet usage, threatens
the vision of a democratic space in which everyone has an equal
opportunity for participation (Peters, 2001; Webster, 2006).
Hence, the ability to understand and analyze the complex
variations in user behavior and participation inequalities
online is becoming increasingly important in connection with
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: +47 220 67 874; fax: +47 2206 7350.
E-mail address: pbb@sintef.no (P.B. Brandtzæg).
(Loosen, 2002).
We are often confronted with the misconception that all users
are equal and equally creative, particularly in relation to the so-
called Web 2.0 culture in which everyone is defined as being a
participant in new Internet services (Van Dijck, 2009). However,
several studies have demonstrated that people with similar levels
of access engage the Internet in fundamentally different ways
(Brandtzæg, 2010; Hargittai, 2010, 2002; Hargittai and Walejko,
2008; Peters, 2001). The Internet ‘‘means different things to
different people and is used in different ways for different
purposes’’ (Selwyn et al., 2005, p. 7).
Despite these differences, until recently, most research has
tended to focus only on the number of people who have
access to or use the Internet and how frequently they use it.
In addition, this research often describes the user population

1071-5819/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2010.11.004
124 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138
according to the dimensions of gender and age, which results
in oversimplified explanations of why and how citizens use,
benefits from and are affected by the Internet (Brandtzæg,
2010; Hargittai, 2010; Hargittai and Walejko, 2008). Today,
the new digital divide – or participation inequality – goes
beyond the differences between the Internet ‘‘haves’’ and
‘‘have nots’’ (Hargittai, 2002; DiMaggio et al., 2004). It
should also go beyond the one-sided focus on frequency of
use or continua of use. Thus, it is crucial to be able to
empirically distinguish and measure various types of Inter-
net use to enable a more precise and nuanced approach to
Internet behavior (Brandtzæg, 2010). Existing research on
the digital divide has mostly focused on the first divide.
This article examines the new digital divide. We believe
that equal access to the Internet does not ensure equal usage
of Internet. Explained another way, we ask not only who is
using the Internet, but also how or in what ways. Therefore,
we argue that there is a need for alternative approaches
beyond simply correlating demographics with the amount of
Internet use. The purpose of this article is to identify
participation and acceptance among European Internet
users with respect to different user types, thus analyzing
the digital divide in terms of ‘‘a user typology divide’’. The
empirical basis is a large representative sample (N = 12,666)
of people in five dissimilar European countries (Norway,
Sweden, Spain, Austria, and the UK). In particular, this
study aims to (1) identify and understand the new digital
divide among the people in Europe in regard to user types
reflecting various characteristics of their Internet user
behaviors, (2) measure how Internet user types differ across
European countries, and (3) identify the most important
predictors (gender, age, Internet access, and members of
household) that explain different Internet user types
across countries and within countries. In the context of
this paper, an Internet user type is merely a convenient way
of describing people who resemble each other in how they
use the Internet.
These results could help public authorities develop
strategies for overcoming the new digital divide by identify-
ing predictors that are crucial to developing certain types of
Internet usage and by identifying certain user groups that
need special support when using the Internet. In addition,
the Internet usage typology we propose could help
designers/requirement engineers to identify and approach
an increasingly diverse range of users and their require-
ments, thereby including and stimulating a larger number of
users to adopt more sophisticated usage patterns. The
results might also support research in technology diffusion
and acceptance in building and testing their theories by
extending the body of knowledge on various Internet
behaviors.
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the
user typologies and introduces our research questions;
Section 3 describes the data collection method; Section 4
describes the results; Section 5 discusses the findings and
their implications for research and practice; finally, Section 6
concludes the paper and describes projected future work.
2. Background
Diverse theoretical frameworks have been used to char-
acterize and explain the acceptance and use of Information
Communication Technologies (ICT) in general and the
Internet in particular, the most influential among them being
the Diffusion of Innovation Model (Rogers, [1962] 2003),
the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989), and the
Uses and Gratification Theory (Katz et al., 1973). Never-
theless, characterizing both the nature of Internet use and
the distinctive user types is challenging, and the existing
literature offers little guidance (Livingstone and Helsper,
2007). A comprehensive survey of empirical studies in this
area, suggests classifying diverse user behaviors into mean-
ingful categories of user types according to (1) the frequency
of use, (2) the variety of use, and (3) content preferences
(Brandtzæg, 2010).
2.1. Studies on Internet user behavior
Dividing people into distinct groups with regard to their
different needs and behaviors is commonly used in both
market research and requirement engineering to target the
various activities and preferences of users. This user
categorization, often labeled user typologies, ‘‘reflects the-
oretical assumptions about, and conceptual organization of,
the salient features of complex behavior’’ (Johnson and
Kulpa, 2007, p. 773). This approach has received consider-
able attention, especially within Internet research. In 2007
and 2008, major organizations, such as the independent
regulator and competition authority for the UK commu-
nications industries, OFCOM (2008), and the Pew Internet
Institute (Horrigan, 2007), recognized this approach as
an important research area and categorized the United
Kingdom and American populations into distinct media
user types. This way of measuring Internet user behavior has
also become a trend within the research community (e.g.,
Johnsson-Smaragdi, 2001; Livingstone and Helsper, 2007;
Ortega Egea et al., 2007).
The recent literature review by Brandtzæg (2010) identi-
fied 22 different studies that have classified media and
Internet users into user types from the year 2000 to 2009.
A majority of these studies were published during the past
three years, and most of them were conducted in either the
US (9) or Europe (11). Several studies focused on (a) the
Internet in general (e.g., Howard et al., 2001), (b) online
services such as e-shopping (e.g., Barnes, 2007), and (c)
online communities and social networking sites (e.g.,
Kozinets, 1999). Studies conducted by Johnsson-Smaragdi
(2001) and Heim et al. (2007) have also addressed entertain-
ment activities and demonstrated their importance in fully
understanding the multiple variations of Internet behavior.
However, one limitation of the studies conducted by
Johnsson-Smaragdi (2001) and Heim et al. (2007) is that
the entertainment dimension is only investigated when
exploring children’s Internet behavior.
 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138 125

One of the most comprehensive studies with regard to 2.2. Limitations of previous research and contributions
Internet user types conducted in the European context is by of this study
Ortega Egea et al. (2007), which used a representative
questionnaire dataset from European countries (EU15) for There are several existing research gaps that this study will
the purpose of international comparison. Data were gath- try to overcome. First, a comprehensive understanding of
ered in November 2002, and a cluster analysis identified the Internet use is a prerequisite for overcoming the digital divide.
following five types of European Internet users: So far, few studies fully understand the multi-complex
variations among individuals that constitute the digital divide
(e.g., Ortega Egea et al., 2007; Brandtzæg, 2010). This study
(1) Laggards (16%)—Occasional and infrequent use of
aims to show that users can be usefully separated into
Internet services and no use of eGovernment services.
distinguishable segments based on their actual Internet
Laggards rarely use the Internet for private purposes.
Most Laggards were found in Germany, France, and behavior. Classifying Internet usage in terms of distinct user
types will therefore help us to more fully understand the
Ireland.
differences in adoption rate and online participation among
(2) Confused and adverse (2%)—High variability, but gen-
both individuals and countries. Second, only five studies have
erally low usage of Internet. This user type shows
previously identified user types across countries, few are
confusion about Internet services. This category rarely
academic (Brandtzæg, 2010), and most of them use outdated
uses the Internet for private purposes or for contacting
empirical data compared to the present study. The usage
authorities, and they are mainly found in the United
patterns of Internet services in Europe have probably changed
Kingdom and Austria.
(3) Advanced Users (16%)—Frequent use of eGovernment since 2002, when the empirical data published by Ortega Egea
et al. (2007) were collected. To overcome the digital divide in
services, not only for administrative tasks (e.g., to search
Europe, a deeper, more contemporary understanding of
for administrative information, to fill out forms, or to
Internet usage among European citizens is needed. Third,
carry out administrative transactions) but also for other
few studies have examined the predictors of different user types
purposes. Advanced Users are the most frequent online
(Brandtzæg, 2010).
shoppers. Countries with most Advanced Users were the
Finally, this study aims to go beyond other similar studies
UK, Holland, and the Nordic countries.
(e.g., Johnsson-Smaragdi, 2001; Selwyn et al., 2005; Horrigan,
(4) Followers (19%)—Use the Internet quite frequently but
not on a daily basis. Followers use eGov-services, 2007; Ortega Egea et al., 2007) by covering a broader spectrum
of usage and content preferences, including entertainment
although not as frequently as Advanced Users and do
activities. Entertainment usage is taken into account among
not shop online. Most Followers were found in Holland
some previous studies of user types (e.g., Heim et al., 2007) but
and Denmark.
not in those that focus on the adult population. Entertainment
(5) Non-Internet Users (44%)—The largest group in the
usage online is thought to have increasing importance in the
sample is characterized by non-usage of the Internet.
information society for both child and adult populations
Countries with a majority of Non-Internet Users were in
(Brandtzæg et al., 2003; Taylor, 2006).
the southern part of Europe, such as Spain, Greece,
Portugal, and Italy.
2.3. Research questions
This user typology reflects not only how different user By using a unique set of data covering European Internet
groups use the Internet in various ways, but also how usage, the goal of this study is to identify and explain a
dissimilar is the potential of user types to exploit the benefits typology of Internet users that offers a better understanding
of the Internet. The user typology identified by Ortega Egea of the various types of usage that constitute the digital
et al. (2007) is partly in line with the unified Media User divide. As a result, we aim to answer the following research
Typology (MUT) model presented by Brandtzæg (2010), questions:
which identified eight new media users: (1) Non-Users, (2)
Sporadics, (3) Debaters, (4) Entertainment Users, (5)
Lurkers, (7), Socializers, and (8) Advanced Users, where
 RQ1: What are the different user types in Europe in
regard to Internet usage?
all, except Debaters (people using Internet for discussion)
and Socializers (people using Internet for socialize with
 RQ2: How can we explain the different user types within
countries and across different countries?
friends and family), are identified based on their general
J What is the relationship within and between countries,
Internet behavior. Debaters and Socializers are more
genders, age groups, types of household, and levels of
common to be found among users in blogs and social
access to technology with respect to different
networking sites in particular, which is an increasingly
user types?
common user behavior. However, blogs and social network-
ing sites were not mainstream in 2005–2006, when the
data from this study were collected, and certainly not The motivations for the use of (1) countries, (2) access (3)
in 2002. gender (4) age, and (5) members in the household as
126 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138
Table 1
Method overview for each country.
Country Statistical office
Norway Statistics Norway/NSD
Austria Statistics Austria
Sweden Statistics Sweden
UK Office for National Statistics
Spain National Statistics Institute
Total
a
Office for National Statistics, Social Survey Division, ONS Omnibus Survey, Internet Access Module, April, July and October, 2004 and February 2005 [File:
2004-05_m330_dataset]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive, Distributed by UK Data Archive, University of Essex, Colchester. November 2006. SN: 5542.
predictors for the various Internet usage or user types are as
follows.
(1) Country: Ortega Egea et al. (2007) found quite large
differences in user types between countries (see back-
ground section).
(2) Access: The form of Internet access (no access, broad-
band, or narrowband) is an obvious predictor for
different types of usage (see Table 2 for overview of
various accesses among participants in our sample).
(3) Gender: Numerous studies have found a large gender
divide in the use of Internet (e.g., Hargittai, 2010;
Dholakia, 2006; Bimber, 2000) and in technology adoption
contexts in general (e.g., Venkatesh et al., 2003).
(4) Age: A generational divide is identified between older
and younger Internet users, where the older users are
often found to lag behind, both in usage and access (see
overview in Karahasanović et al. (2009).
(5) Household: With regard to household composition, it is a
common opinion that having children in the household
increases the probability that the household will acquire
computers and Internet access (Heim et al., 2007).
3. Method
We used the data from the European community survey on
ICT usage in households and by individuals from 2004 to 2006.
The collection of the raw data was coordinated by the EU’s
statistical office—Eurostat.1 The survey was first introduced in
2002. It currently covers most of the EU countries and some of
the EFTA countries and aims to collect harmonized and
comparable information on European citizens’ access to and
use of the Internet.
3.1. Countries analyzed
Livingstone et al. (2001) classified European countries
based on their use of both old (TV, radio, and newspapers)
and new media (PC and Internet) into the following four
groups: low use of new media (e.g., Spain, Italy, and France),
1
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu.
Period of data collection N Interview method
April–June 2005 1235 Telephone
February–March 2005 13,154 Telephone
April and May 2006 3490 Telephone
April 2004, July 2004, October 2004, 6823 Face-to-face
February 2005a
April–July 2005 19,400 Telephone and paper
and pencil
44,102
moderate use of new media (e.g., Germany, Switzerland, and
Austria), heavy use of both TV and new media (only the UK
belongs to this group), and pioneers of new media (the Nordic
countries and the Netherlands). The selection of participat-
ing countries in our study was motivated by a desire to
include countries characterized by low, medium, and high
Internet use as well as the availability of micro-data from
national statistical agencies. Thus, we selected countries
with relatively low (Spain), medium (Austria and UK), and
high (Norway and Sweden) use of the Internet. Table 2
below shows the penetration rates in terms of various forms
of Internet access in the different countries.
We received micro-data2 on Internet use by household and by
individuals from the statistical offices of five European
countries. Table 1 gives an overview of the offices that provided
the data, the period of the data collection, the number of
respondents, and the interview method used for each country.
The original total sample size was N=44,102. Tables A1
and A2 in Appendix A give an overview of the different
countries’ sample characteristics compared to real country
population characteristics. To adjust for the non-representa-
tive distribution of countries (different sample size) and some
gender skews in the Eurostat data (compared to the population
data), a random selection of participants was performed so
that a country’s population and gender distribution were
mirrored in the new sub-sample (N=12,666). The new,
adapted sample is shown in Table 2. The new and final sample
(N=12,666) was compared and verified with Eurostat data on
age and gender distribution in the respective countries (see
Tables A1 and A2 in Appendix A).
3.2. Scope
This study uses the data on individuals aged 16–74 years
and households with at least one member in the same age
group. The statistical unit is the individual respondent in a
household. The survey maps overall usage of the Internet for
individuals and households, and is divided along variables
such as family type, age, gender and form of Internet access.
2
Micro-data are data on the characteristics of units of a population, such
as individuals or households.
 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138 127

Table 2
Sample characteristics (in %) in the selected countries.

Norway Sweden Austria Spain UK

Sample size N=451 N=908 N=814 N=4424 N= 6069

Age
16–24 14 15 14 18 10
25–34 16 15 16 16 14
35–44 16 16 24 20 24
45–54 20 20 20 17 22
55–64 20 17 14 17 19
65–74 14 17 12 12 11
Gender
Male 45 49 49 48 49
Female 55 51 51 52 51
Access
Home computer (PC) 75 80 61 53 70
Internet at home (total) 62 70 44 36 60
Broadband at home 50 61 25 18 40
Narrowband at home 12 9 19 18 20
Internet out-of-home only 8 3 8 14 N/A
Number of members in household
One member 24 20 11 16 28
Two members 35 28 27 28 37
Three members 14 19 21 24 15
Four members or more 27 33 41 32 20

Note: The final new sample N=12,666. See the proportional sampling in Tables A1 and A2 in Appendix A. N/A =not applicable.

As shown in Table 1, the respondents’ Internet usage is
measured using a self-assessment approach, i.e., the respon-
dent simply indicates whether he/she use various Internet
activities. The complete Eurostat methodology and ques-
tionnaire can be found online.3
3.3. Harmonization of data
The questions concerning Internet usage and access asked in
different countries were mainly subsets of the ‘‘Eurostat model
for a community survey on ICT usage in households and by
individuals, 2005.’’ Although the questionnaire items differed
among countries, there was a group of core items used by all.
The data were received in different formats such as Excel
(Sweden), plain text (Spain), and SPSS (Norway, UK and
Austria), and they were coded differently. First, all files were
formatted into an SPSS format. Next, all variable labels were
translated into English by a professional translator, and all
variables that were based on the same question were re-coded
into a common format when possible, which included recoding
from multiple choice responses into ‘‘Yes/No’’ responses,
giving ‘‘Yes/No’’ responses the same numerical codes (No=0,
Yes=1), and coding Age group, Gender, Number of members
in household and Access to PC and Internet into variables with
common categories. Finally, all variables that were assessed as
‘‘the same’’ were given identical names and merged into one
SPSS file for further analysis.
3
See http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_SDDS/FR/isoc_reg_
base.htm.
3.4. Identifying Internet user types
To answer RQ1, to identify the user typology, we
conducted a K-means cluster analysis of people’s usage of
technology. A cluster analysis is a robust technique for
classifying similar objects into different groups. More
precisely, a cluster is a group of relatively homogeneous
cases or observations. Objects in a cluster are similar to each
other, and dissimilar to objects in other clusters. Cluster
analysis is the most commonly used technique in studies that
identify media user types (Brandtzæg, 2010). K-means
cluster analysis (see for example Tan et al., 2006) is
recommended when the number of entities (persons) in
the analysis is high (more than 1000). In a K-means cluster
analysis, K denotes the number of clusters and is an input
parameter. Moreover, all variables should be within the
same range when entered into the analysis; in our dataset, all
variable values were 0 or 1 (see Table 3).
We conducted a K-means score analysis of the data (see
Table 3). First, we identified a set of variables that was used
in the analysis. A subset of 29 items appeared in the datasets
from all five countries. These items covered questions on
Internet usage, regardless of what type of Internet access the
respondent had. Six of these variables had a very low
frequency of ‘‘Yes’’ responses, so they were thought to be
unsuitable for analysis and were deleted from the common
set, which was then reduced to 23 clustering variables.
Second, to determine the number of clusters, we followed
the procedures suggested by Ray and Turi (1999). As a
result, we identified five clusters denoting five Internet user
128 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138

Table 3
Mean scores within each cluster.

Variable Cluster

1 2 3 4 5

Have you used the Internet daily during the past three months? 0 0.11 0.74 0.51 0.83
Have you used the Internet at home during the past three months? 0 0.44 0.87 0.87 0.91
Have you used the Internet at your workplace outside your home during the past three months? 0 0.27 0.35 0.51 0.76
Have you used the Internet in an educational institution during the past three months? 0 0.08 0.30 0.06 0.16
Have you used the Internet in someone else’s home during the past three months? 0 0.19 0.28 0.11 0.39
Have you used e-mail during the past three months? 0 0.42 0.94 0.95 0.99
Have you taken part in a chat session during the past three months? 0 0.08 0.57 0.07 0.38
Have you searched for information about goods or services during the past three months? 0 0.45 0.88 0.93 0.98
Have you utilized services related to travel or hotels during the past three months? 0 0.13 0.33 0.75 0.96
Have you listened to or watched Internet radio or TV during the past three months? 0 0.11 0.71 0.08 0.46
Have you played or downloaded games or music online during the past three months? 0 0.12 0.82 0.07 0.44
Have you used net-banking services during the past three months? 0 0.08 0.42 0.50 0.76
Have you purchased or ordered goods or services during the past three months? 0 0.05 0.28 0.42 0.92
Have you taken any continuing education courses during the past three months? 0 0.04 0.13 0.12 0.34
Have you taken other educational courses in connection with work possibilities during the past 0 0.05 0.10 0.17 0.47
three months?
Have you purchased or ordered household products during the past 12 months? 0 0.01 0.04 0.08 0.29
Have you purchased or ordered films or music during the past 12 months? 0 0.02 0.13 0.09 0.50
Have you purchased or ordered books, newspapers, magazines or teaching materials during the 0 0.02 0.1 0.12 0.50
past 12 months?
Have you purchased or ordered clothes or sports articles during the past 12 months? 0 0.03 0.1 0.14 0.35
Have you purchased or ordered electronic equipment during the past 12 months? 0 0.01 0.07 0.07 0.30
Have you purchased or ordered travel or hotel rooms during the past 12 months? 0 0.02 0.05 0.22 0.81
Percentage of cases/clusters (%) 42 18 10 18 12

Note: N=12,666. Different font styles are used to enhance the readability of the table: italics is used for cluster means equal or less than 0.25 and bold is used
for cluster means equal or greater than 0.75.

types, with the details given in Fig. A1 in Appendix A.
Lastly, we calculated mean scores for each variable for the
five clusters and described them in terms of the user behavior
typical of each cluster. The data were analyzed with SPSS for
Windows version 15 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).
Table 3 shows the mean score within each cluster (because
all raw data values are either 0 or 1, the ‘‘mean score’’ is also
the proportion of cluster members responding ‘‘Yes’’ to
the item).
3.5. Explaining and predicting Internet usage
To answer RQ2, we wanted to extend our existing
knowledge of Internet usage among European citizens by
investigating the forces that drive the adoption of the
Internet and different types of adoption and use. More
specifically, we investigated relationships between countries,
genders, age groups, access levels, and household sizes
pertaining to various Internet user types. We first identified
and characterized the user types and then conducted a
logistic regression to identify the predictive factors for
different user types.
The following samples were used in the analysis:
 Total sample: A sample (N =12,666) of all participants
selected to adjust for population size and gender (see
Table 2 and Tables A1 and A2 in Appendix A).
 National samples: Total sample divided into five sub-
samples according to participant’s country (Norway,
Austria, Sweden, Spain and UK—see Table 2).
For each sample defined above, five logistic regression
analyses were carried out, one for each user type, where the
dependent variable was cluster membership (scored 0 or 1).
The first analysis aimed at differentiating the Non-Users
from the rest of the population. The next four analyses
aimed to differentiate the other four types from each other,
leaving out the Non-Users from the analyses.
The following variables were entered as independent vari-
ables into the logistic regression at the same time: (i) access to
PC and Internet at home, (ii) number of members in house-
hold, (iii) gender, and (iv) age. Access to PC and Internet was
grouped in the following categories: (1) no access, (2) access to
PC with no Internet connection, (3) access to PC and
narrowband Internet connection, and (4) access to PC and
broadband Internet connection. Members in household cate-
gories were as follows: (1) household with one member, (2)
household with two members, (3) household with three
members, and (4) household with four or more members.
The age categories were as follows: 16–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54,
55–64, and 65–74 years (see Table 2 for an overview). As seen
in Tables 4 and 5, several of the independent variables were
correlated. Because the dependent variables – user type
membership – were dichotomous, logistic regression analyses
were conducted instead of linear regression analyses.
 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138 129

4. Results 60
Sporadic users
Instrumental users
50
We present the analyses in the following order: the Non users

% within country
Advanced users
interpretation of the K-means cluster analysis identifying 40 Entertainment users
major user types (Section 4.1), user types distributed across
the selected European countries (Section 4.2), and a logistic 30
regression analyzing the different predictors of various types 20
of users (Section 4.3). The same analysis conducted for the
entire sample was also carried out for each country to 10
explore the differences between countries (Section 4.4).
0
Norway Sweden Austria UK Spain
4.1. User types Country

Based on the K-means cluster analysis, we identified the
following five types of Internet users, labeled and interpreted
in terms of the Media User Typology suggested by
Brandtzæg (2010), described in the background section
(Section 2):
Fig. 1. User types and distribution per country.
Table 4
Spearman’s rho correlations among the independent variables in this study.

Access Household Gender Age

(1) Cluster/user type 1: Non-Users (42% of the sample):
People in this category do not use the Internet on a
regular basis. This cluster is the largest; 42% of the
participants belong to this category.
(2) Cluster/user type 2: Sporadic Users (18% of the sample):
These users are characterized by occasional and infre-
quent use of Internet services, such as e-mail and some
specific tasks, and are therefore named ‘‘Sporadic
Users.’’
(3) Cluster/user type 3: Entertainment Users (10% of the
sample): The mean scores of this cluster are higher than
those of the other clusters with regards to using Internet
radio or TV, downloading games or music and chat. As a
result, the cluster is named ‘‘Entertainment Users.’’
(4) Cluster/user type 4: Instrumental Users (18% of the
sample): These users have the highest mean scores in
goal-oriented activities such as searching for informa-
tion about goods or services and utilizing services related
to net-banking, e-commerce and travel, and are there-
fore named ‘‘Instrumental Users.’’ Approximately 50%
of them use the Internet on a daily basis at home
or work.
(5) Cluster/user type 5: Advanced Users (12% of the sample):
In general, the mean scores of this user type are the
highest for almost all Internet variables, indicating a
very varied and broad Internet behavior, and they are
therefore termed ‘‘Advanced Users.’’ Although the
overall mean scores for this cluster are high, it is clear
that these users are primarily oriented towards utility or
instrumental activities, as opposed to more leisure or
entertainment-related activities.
Access 1 0.293nn 0.050nn 0.282nn
Household 0.293nn 1 0.000 0.367nn
Gender 0.050nn 0.000 1 0.007
Age 0.282nn 0.367nn 0.007 1
Note: ‘‘Household’’ refers to the number of members in the household.
‘‘Access’’ refers to access to Internet and PC at home.
nn
Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
the countries related to the distribution of Internet user
types, especially the proportions of Non-Users and
Advanced Users. On a general level, we can see the following
distribution of the user types among the various countries:
 Advanced, but differentiated: Norway and UK are typi-
cally differentiated by large differences in levels of
Internet use in the population from Non-Users to
Advanced Users—a user type divide. In Norway 25%
are Advanced and 22% are Non-Users. In UK 18% are
Advanced, while 39% are Non-Users.
 Instrumentals: Austria is characterized by a large propor-
tion of Instrumental Users (22%) but also several Non-
Users (48%).
 Entertainments: Spain and Sweden are characterized by a
relatively large proportion of Entertainment Users, but a
smaller proportion of Advanced Users compared to
Norway and the UK. However, they differ in other
respects: Sweden has fewer Non-Users (10%), while
Spain has the largest group of Non-Users (55%).

4.2. Distribution of user types among the participating
countries
Fig. 1 reveals that all user types are identified in all
countries, but that there are substantial differences among
4.3. The predictors of different Internet user types
We conducted a logistic regression analysis to investigate
factors that may predict different types of users. Table 4
shows that there were substantial correlations between the
130 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138

Table 5
Logistic regression analysis with the different user types as dependent variables across all countries (N=12,666).

Predictors B S.E. Wald df p Odds ratio

Non-Users as dependent variable (Nagelkerke R-square=0.581)

Gender 0.301 0.053 31.98 1 0.000 1.35
Age 0.796 0.021 1403 1 0.000 2.22
Household 0.441 0.028 249.9 1 0.000 1.56
Access 1.41 0.028 2530 1 0.000 0.24
Sporadic Users as dependent variable (Nagelkerke R-square=0.250)
Gender 0.315 0.060 27.73 1 0.000 1.37
Age 0.214 0.023 84.84 1 0.000 1.24
Household 0.305 0.030 101.7 1 0.000 1.36
Access 1.043 0.033 989.5 1 0.000 0.35

Entertainment Users as dependent variable (Nagelkerke R-square=0.180)

Gender 0.464 0.069 45.82 1 0.000 0.63
Age 0.608 0.030 420.9 1 0.000 0.55
Household 0.025 0.032 0.611 1 0.434 1.03
Access 0.584 0.040 214.9 1 0.000 1.79

Instrumental Users as dependent variable (Nagelkerke R-square=0.083)

Gender 0.352 0.056 39.87 1 0.000 1.42
Age 0.356 0.021 277.62 1 0.000 1.43
Household 0.012 0.027 0.207 1 0.649 1.01
Access 0.197 0.030 42.32 1 0.000 1.22
Advanced Users as dependent variable (Nagelkerke R-square= 0.105)
Gender 0.341 0.064 28.35 1 0.000 0.711
Age 0.163 0.024 46.40 1 0.000 0.849
Household 0.295 0.030 93.87 1 0.000 0.745
Access 0.680 0.040 291.5 1 0.000 1.97

Note: ‘‘Household’’ refers to the number of members in the household. ‘‘Access’’ refers to access to Internet and PC at home. In Table 6, we present the results
within each separate country for different user types.

independent variables, especially between access, age, and
members in a household.
Table 5 presents the results of the logistic regression analysis,
explaining the predictors for the different user types across
different countries. The particular type of user (i.e., Non-User,
Sporadic User, Advanced User, Instrumental User, or Enter-
tainment User) is the dependent variable. The independent
variables are listed in the first column. For each user type, we
report the results from the total sample and the Nagelkerke
R-square values, which provide an indication of the amount of
variation in the dependent variable (user type) explained by the
model (from a minimum value of 0 to a maximum of
approximately 1). The ‘‘B’’ values in the left column in Table 5
are equivalent to the B values obtained in the multiple regression
analysis; B values, positive or negative, tell you about the
direction of the relationship. The ‘‘odds ratio’’ column to the
right in Table 5 gives the factor by which the odds of a user
belonging to a specific user type increase when the value of a
predictor are increased by one unit. This statistic reflects the
effect size of the variable. The results are explained in more detail
below. The more descriptive analyses of user types and
predictors are to be found in Figs. A2–A5 in Appendix A.
4.3.1. Predicting Non-Users
All of the independent variables (access, age, gender,
household) contributed significantly to the prediction of the
Non-User type (p=0.000). The model as a whole explained
58.1% (Nagelkerke R-squared) of the variance in Non-Users.
As shown in Table 5, being female increases the odds of
being a Non-User by a factor of 1.35. Belonging to an older
age category increases the probability by a factor of
2.22. Increasing the access category by one unit decreases
the probability by a factor of 0.244. Belonging to a house-
hold category with more members increases the probability
by a factor of 1.56. Comparing the Wald Chi-Square
statistics shows that Access and Age are the most significant
predictors; this measure indicates the statistical significance of
the variable’s contribution to predicting the dependent
variable.
4.3.2. Predicting Sporadic Users
As shown in Table 5, all independent variables contributed
significantly to the prediction of the Sporadic User type
(p=0.000). However, while the independent variables account
for 58.1% of the variance among Non-Users, they only
account for 25% (Nagelkerke R-squared) of the variance
among Sporadic Users. Females tend to be Sporadic Users
more often than men, and gender (being female) increase the
odds ratio by 1.37, being older increases the probability of
being a Sporadic User by an odds ratio of 1.23, as does living in
a larger household (odds ratio=1.3). For more about gender
differences, see Fig. A2 in Appendix A.
 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138
4.3.3. Predicting Entertainment Users
As shown in Table 5, all of the independent variables
contributed significantly to the prediction of being an
Entertainment User, except household. The model as a
whole explained 18% (Nagelkerke R-squared) of the
variance in Entertainment Users. Age and access are the
most significant predictors (see Wald in Table 5).
4.3.4. Predicting Instrumental Users
Age, access and gender contribute significantly to the
prediction of the Instrumental User type (p =0.000), but
household does not. Access and age are the most significant
predictors (Wald). The model as a whole explained an
estimated 8% (Nagelkerke R-squared) of the variance in
Instrumental Users, which is little compared to the predic-
tions of variance in Non-Users. Slightly more females
than males tend to be Instrumental Users (see Fig. A2 in
Appendix A), and higher levels of access, being female and
older increase the odds ratio of being an Instrumental User
between 1.2 and 1.4.
4.3.5. Predicting Advanced Users
All independent variables contributed significantly to the
prediction of the Advanced User type (p =0.000). As shown
in Table 5, the model as a whole explained 8% (Nagelkerke
R-squared) of the variance in Advanced Users. These results
are very much the opposite of the results for the Sporadic
Users; being female, older and living in households with
more members decreases the probability of being an
Advanced User, while greater Internet access increases this
probability of being an Advanced User (odds ratio =1.97).
4.4. Differences between countries
The same regression analysis as conducted for the entire
sample was carried out for each separate country, to explore
the various predictors for different user types within the
selected countries. The detailed results are given in Table 6.
In general, Table 6 shows that the research model explains
the variance in the dependent variable to varying degrees
depending on the specific country. The model as a whole
explained Non-Users best in Norway with an estimated 60%
(Nagelkerke R-squared) of the variance, while Sporadic
Users was best explained in Spain (Nagelkerke R-
squared = 28.6%), Entertainment Users in Sweden
(Nagelkerke R-squared = 31.6%), Instrumental Users in
Norway (Nagelkerke R-squared =17.3%), and Advanced
Users was best explained by the model in UK (Nagelkerke
R-squared = 13.7%).
4.4.1. Non-User
As shown in Table 6, access at home is important in all
countries, particularly in the UK, though it is relatively less
important in Spain. The overall effect of age is also very
high. Because access varies to a great extent between
countries, it is important to take it into account when
comparing the countries. Sweden and Norway have the
131
highest penetration of broadband connections, while in the
UK and Austria narrowband is more common. Spain also
has the lowest level of access at home (see Table 2).
4.4.2. Sporadic Users
As shown in Table 6, the major trends are similar to those
for the analysis including all countries, but the predictor
variables account for more of the variance in the dependent
variables for Sweden, Spain and UK than for Norway and
Austria. In Spain, the model as a whole explained 29%
(Nagelkerke R-squared) of the variance in Sporadic Users.
In Norway and Austria, access is the only significant
predictor. The role of gender varies somewhat across
countries and is the most important in Spain, whereas the
effect of the number of household members is most
significant in the UK and Sweden.
4.4.3. Entertainment Users
Table 6 shows that the role of gender is not significant in
Norway, but it is highly significant in Sweden, UK and
Spain. The overall picture is that more males than females
tend to be Entertainment Users (see Fig. A2 in Appendix A),
and younger users have a significant higher probability than
older users of being Entertainment Users in all countries
(p o 0.001). Moreover, a high level of access predicts being
an Entertainment User, but not significantly in Austria. To
some extent, the number of household members predicts
being an Entertainment User in Norway, but not in the other
countries.
4.4.4. Instrumental Users
Fig. A3 shows that being female and older adult increases
the probability of being an Instrumental User; however, the
role of gender is not significant in Sweden and Spain. In
Norway and Sweden the model as a whole explained,
respectively, 17% and 11% (Nagelkerke R-squared) of
the variance in Instrumental Users. The model is not very
good at explaining the Instrumental Users among the other
countries. Further, while in the total analysis (Table 5) more
members of the household have no effect on the probability
of being an Instrumental User, this variable increases the
probability in Norway and the UK. Access increases the
probability in Norway, Austria and Spain. ‘‘Narrowband
Internet Connection,’’ is typical for Instrumental Users,
although this is not the case for Austria where Instrumental
Users tend to have broadband.
4.4.5. Advanced Users
As described in Table 6, the predictor variables account
for more of the variance in the dependent variables for the
UK (13%) and Spain (10%) than for the other countries
(Nagelkerke R-squared). In Norway and Sweden, access is
the only significant predictor, although this is not a
significant predictor for Austria. The roles of age and
gender are most important in Spain and the UK, but they
are not important in the other countries.
132 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138

Table 6
A description of the results (Exp(B) and Nagelkerke R-square) from the regression analysis within in each country in the sample with the different user types
as dependent variables.

Variable Country

Norway Sweden Austria UK Spain

Non-Users as dependent
Gender 1.551 0.958 1.717nn 1.398nnn 1.235n
Age 2.565nnn 1.896nnn 2.250nnn 1.994nnn 2.640nnn
Household 1.498n 1.148 1.353nn 1.446nnn 1.587nnn
Access 0.264nnn 0.247nnn 0.283nnn 0.209nnn 0.333nnn
Nagelkerke R-squared 0.607 0.454 0.518 0.589 0.552

Sporadic Users as dependent

Gender 1.273 1.683n 1.355 1.294nn 1.620nnn
Age 1.224 1.381nnn 1.208n 1.200nnn 1.421nnn
Household 1.055 1.372nn 1.145 1.257nnn 1.186nn
Access 0.446nnn 0.329nnn 0.576nnn 0.364nnn 0.379nnn
Nagelkerke R-squared 0.138 0.236 0.084 0.202 0.286

Entertainment Users as dependent

Gender 0.663 0.564nn 0.294nnn 0.580nnn 0.720nnn
Age 0.525nnn 0.447nnn 0.557nnn 0.516nnn 0.632nnn
Household 0.733n 0.899 1.119 0.944 1.009
Access 2.324nnn 2.198nnn 1.114 1.611nnn 2.164nnn
Nagelkerke R-squared 0.227 0.316 0.171 0.143 0.219

Instrumental Users as dependent

Gender 1.972nn 1.187 1.624n 1.474nnn 1.147
Age 1.692nnn 1.592nnn 1.212n 1.413nnn 1.260nnn
Household 1.490nn 1.036 0.906 1.120nn 1.016
Access 0.704n 1.076 1.473nn 1.474 1.262nn
Nagelkerke R-squared 0.173 0.116 0.081 0.071 0.031
Advanced Users as dependent
Gender 0.650 1.052 0.589 0.695nnn 0.521nnn
Age 0.852 1.009 0.756 0.771nnn 0.521n
Household 0.930 0.877 0.807 0.800nnn 0.662nnn
Access 1.465n 2.530nnn 1.513 2.191nnn 1.914nnn
Nagelkerke R-squared 0.052 0.052 0.044 0.137 0.102

Note: N=12,666, sub-samples; Norway (N=451), Sweden (N =908), Austria (N=814), Spain (N=4424), UK (N=6069).
n
po 0.05.
nn
po 0.01.
nnn
po0.001.

5. Discussion of usage patterns needed for digital participation. This

First, our results show that we can cluster users into five
different categories based on their various patterns of
Internet usage. We suggest that this user typology is a
more nuanced approach to understand the new digital
divides that are emerging. These user types are somewhat
equivalent to those found by Ortega Egea et al. (2007),
although our study also reveals an important new category
of users – Entertainment Users – and in that respect confirms
to a large degree the user typology model for Internet or new
media users, as suggested by Brandtzæg (2010) and the
Unified Model of a Media User Typology described in the
background section.
Second, an alarming finding is that a total of 60% of our
sample was found to be either Non- or Sporadic Users,
which means that most citizens still lack the higher level
situation indicates that the digital divide is still a large
scale problem in Europe. When comparing this digital divide
with the similar user groups identified by Ortega Egea et al.
(2007) we will only find a decline of 2%, which is surprisingly
little as our data are between four and six years newer (2002
versus 2004/2006). We would have expected the digital
divide to have diminished more rapidly because our sample
is collected from well developed countries, with high Gross
Domestic Product (GDP).
Third, we found that the main predictors for the user type
divide of the five identified Internet user types are access and
age, as illustrated in Fig. 2.
As shown in Fig. 2 and Table 6, age and access predict
Non-Users in all countries, but still nearly 30% of the
participants with Internet access (narrowband or broad-
band) are Non-Users. Age and access also consistently
 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138
Non-users
Older
Instrumental
Users
Age
Advanced
Users
Sporadic
Users
Entertainment
Younger Users
No Medium High
Access
Fig. 2. Relationship of access and age for the five identified Internet
user types.
predicts Sporadic Users (older age/low access), Instrumental
Users (older age/medium access), Entertainment Users
(younger age/high access), and Advanced Users (younger
age/high access), although the effect size varies somewhat
from country to country. For example, access is important
when explaining Instrumental Users in Austria, Spain and
Norway but not in Sweden and UK. Gender does not
explain being Instrumental Users in Sweden and Spain, but
is a significant predictor when explaining Instrumental
Users in the other participating countries. These contextual
variations show that there are several cultural variables
that we will need to take in to account to understand the
digital divide in terms of different user types. Overall,
however, the findings reflect the common perception that
younger people have more interest in opportunities to learn
and explore new technology and that access still is an
important variable.
Fourth, other but less important predictors for explaining
and user types are (1) household and (2) gender. Belonging
to a household with more members (than one) seems,
for example, to reduce the odds of being an Advanced User
and to predict the possibility of being a Non-User when
access is controlled for, which might be explained by age
and the fact that students often live in households with
few members. When an individual lives alone, he/she also
has a greater need to be supported by Internet services to
keep in touch with others (Wellman and Hogan, 2004).
Further, being female seems to reduce the odds of being
an Advanced User, except in Sweden. Sweden has high
gender equality compared to most other European coun-
tries, which might explain part of the reason for this effect.
Previous research in USA suggests that women’s larger
share of household and child-rearing responsibilities gives
them less leisure time for using the Internet, telling that
gender inequalities in Internet use remain even when
controlling for access differences (Hargittai and Shafer,
2006).
However, in general, gender points in the same direction
as age and access: males are more likely to be Advanced
133
Users than Sporadic Users and more likely to be Entertain-
ment Users than Instrumental Users, which has been
confirmed in some other studies, in particular among
children (e.g., Heim et al., 2007; Dholakia, 2006; Brandtzæg
et al., 2005). In a study of Internet use among US adults,
Bimber (2000) found gender gaps in both access and use. The
latter study concluded that differences in use could be
due to gender-specific factors such as cultural associations
between gender and technology and gendered cognitive and
communication preferences. Colley and Maltby (2008)
identified differences in the effects of Internet use on both
men’s and women’s lives and concluded that the Internet
represents an extension of broader social roles and interests
in the offline world. These gender differences might tell us
that the power relationships of the real world creep into
cyberspace as well, in contrast to the hypothesis of an online
world free of gender restrictions. However, it should be
noted that there is no clear cut distinction, and that both
females and males are well represented in all the user types
(see Fig. A2 in Appendix A).
Fifth, the Internet usage divide also appears among
European countries with quite high access to both PC
and Internet (see Fig. A5 in Appendix A). However, a
central finding was that the identified Internet user types are
stable across the countries studied. All user types were
identified among the different countries, but there were
large differences in the number of particular user types
between the countries, which is in line with the results of the
study of Ortega Egea et al. (2007). Nevertheless, there are
some significant differences between these two studies.
Ortega Egea et al. (2007) identified Spain as a backward
country, characterized by a high share of Non-Internet
Users. Three years later, in our study, Spain still has a
high share of Non-Users, but it also has a relatively high
share of Entertainment Users. This Entertainment usage
indicates an intermediate level of development of Internet
usage. In the Ortega Egea study, Sweden was considered a
country with advanced Internet usage (32% Advanced
Users). Our results show a smaller share of Advanced
Users but a higher or growing share of Entertainment
Users. This change might be explained by the fact that the
Ortega Egea study did not measure online entertainment
activities in their study, and that the Entertainment
Users which were not identified in 2002 were labeled as
Advanced. The differences also partly indicate changes
over time in Internet penetration and usage development.
In general, it seems that Austria and Spain have been
moving towards more advanced use and that Sweden
might have been adopting a different type of use over
the years.
Sixth, the country differences might be explained by the
penetration of at home broadband Internet connections as
shown in Fig. 3. This has increased rapidly in all the
participating countries. Although there are large differences
in access among the countries, access to the Internet still
cannot completely explain this variation, as 30% of the
Non-Users have access.
134 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138
Percentage of households who have broadband access
at home
80
Spain
70 Austria
60 Sweden
United Kingdom
50
Norway
40
30
20
10
0 ment Users, might progress faster than the others, compared
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Year
Fig. 3. Percentage of households who have broadband access from 2003 to
2008 at home in countries included in this study (data from Eurostat).
The variation between countries may be dependent on
education level, socioeconomic indicators, or national
wealth in terms of GDP, as well as the infrastructure related
to the Internet and broadband in the specified country.
Moreover, as suggested by Livingstone et al. (2001), cross-
country research on media use has to take into account the
context of the available media and the policies that regulate
them, in addition to a wide range of cultural factors that
frame everyday life, such as differences in family structure
and linguistic uniformity/diversity. The same can be claimed
for online use. Future studies should therefore investigate a
larger number of socioeconomic indicators.
5.1. Future predictions—towards an increasing digital divide
or user type divide?
It is to be expected that the penetration and diffusion of
broadband, digitalization, and media convergence will
increase in the near future. It is reasonable to believe that,
together with the emphasis on new technology in schools,
this convergence will result in a trend towards more wide-
spread use of the Internet among younger generations.
Therefore, we expect the mean age of Entertainment Users
to decrease in the future.
Entertainment Users are already the youngest group in
our sample, and we expect that the young users will convert
directly from being Sporadic to Entertainment Users as their
Internet skills grow. If all children have the opportunity to
use the technology, they will probably become Entertain-
ment Users after a short period of trying out all the
possibilities. When they become older and want to broaden
their repertoire, they will become Advanced Users, meaning
that in the future we will see fewer pure Instrumental Users.
Instrumental activities of course will not disappear, but will
be added to the entertainment activities in which the user is
already engaged.
However, people who start to use the Internet as adults
will mostly do so for instrumental reasons; they use the
technology because it is useful, not because it is entertaining.
There is reason to believe that adults starting to use the
technology first go through a period of being Sporadic
Users, trying out the possibilities, and then ‘‘convert’’ to
being Instrumental Users to cope with practical tasks that
can be solved with the use of Internet services.
As the Internet evolves, the level of access and usage of
each of these groups in the user typology tends to increase,
but the divide in terms of different user types will probably
grow. Each group is progressing, but the most favored user
types, Advanced Users, Instrumental Users, and Entertain-
with Non-Users and Sporadic Users. This is already a
pattern that has been found in both Norway and UK. The
more sophisticated the user type, the more we can expect the
users to have the high degree of online competence and
knowledge that are needed to develop and adapt faster in
connection with the increasing development and distribu-
tion of the Internet. This anticipation of an increasing divide
between groups or new media user types is also illustrated in
Evans and Wurster’s Blown to Bits (2000). This notion also
parallels the ‘‘rich get richer’’ effect, where people who are
active online benefit most from the Internet and will achieve
new skills faster along with the development of new online
services. This thought is also supported by the fact that users
in Norway, where access and usage is high, have a more
differentiated use pattern compared to users in other and
less developed Internet countries in this study.
5.2. Validity
A possible threat to the validity of our results is that the
respondents’ Internet usage was measured using a self-
assessment approach, i.e., the respondents simply indicated
whether they were able to carry out a specific task related to
computer use without their skills being assessed, tested, or
actually observed. As a result, people might have wrongly
reported their skills. In any case, we believe that this threat is
limited because several studies have indicated that people’s
own perceptions are a good indicator of their actual abilities
(Demunter, 2006).
In this context, the Internet user typology approach is
merely a convenient way of describing a heterogeneous set of
data. As seen in the previous discussion, there is no claim
that a user ‘‘is’’ a given user type for the rest of his/her life.
There is also no claim that there are absolute boundaries
between the types; in the present approach, all users have a
degree of belongingness to all the user types but are classified
according to the type that they most closely resemble.
Another limitation is that the user types only cover Internet
usage and not other media technologies. However, the
Internet must be viewed as one of the most important media
channels in modern society.
 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138
The selection of countries in this study is also crucial.
Other countries have both higher (Iceland and the Nether-
lands) and lower coverage of Internet access (Czech
Republic and Greece) than the countries in this study.
However, the countries selected in this study show some
interesting variations in the relationships between user types
and access.
Finally, when interpreting the results one should be aware
of the low statistical evidence in general. Most of the
statistics in this study have low power. Readers should also
be aware that the use of secondary data involves several
limitations, which are primarily related to a lack of flexibility
in the measures included in this study. Nonetheless, this lack
of flexibility is balanced by access to representative and
comparative cross-national survey data in countries of the
European Union. Even so, statistics on ICT use by house-
holds may run into problems of international comparability
because of structural differences in the composition of
households.
6. Conclusion and future work
The research objective of this study was to examine the
new digital divide. We identified a typology of Internet users
by grouping users with the similar online behavior into
homogeneous groups. In an empirical investigation of
12,666 people in Europe between the ages of 16–74 years
we found that the Internet usage in Norway, Spain, Sweden,
Austria and the UK is characterized by the following five
user types: (1) Non-Users, (2) Sporadic Users, (3) Instru-
mental Users, (4) Entertainment Users and (5) Advanced
Users. This interpretation has theoretical justification
in Brandtzæg’s (2010) model of a unified media user
typology.
The typology of Internet users indicates different forms of
online participation and a digital divide that goes beyond
‘‘the haves’’ and the ‘‘have nots.’’ The results rather suggest
a ‘‘user type divide’’, where unequal Internet usage or online
participation is the key to understand the new digital divide.
Therefore, when addressing the digital divide in the future, it
is important to identify different user types. Researchers
should in the future not only ask who is using the Internet,
but how they are using it. Those users with the most
advanced user types (e.g., Instrumental Users and Advanced
Users) will probably benefit most from the Internet and will
achieve new skills faster along with the development of new
online services.
Differences in user types can be explained by predictors
such as country, age, access, household members, and
gender. On a cross-national level age and Internet access
are the most salient predicting factors, whereas gender seems
to be less relevant, but still important, when explaining the
variance in the different user types.
In addition to a user type divide within countries, there is
also a large access and user type divide between countries.
For example, there are few Advanced Users and several
Non-Users in Spain and Austria (Fig. 1). The UK and
135
Norway seem to be the most differentiated countries, with
several prevalent user types, including both Non-Users and
a large number of Advanced Users.
On a general level, the majority of European citizens from
the countries investigated lag alarmingly behind in terms of
Internet usage. 60% are either Non-Users (42%) or
Sporadic Users (18%). The study also predicts the presence
of a ‘‘rich get richer’’ effect in which the divide between the
different user types will increase in connection with the
growing development and distribution of the Internet and its
technologies. This development indicates larger inequalities
of online participation in the future. The digital divide
in terms of nurturing the more sophisticated user types
should therefore remain a crucial issue on the agenda for
technology developers as well as politicians, in the years
to come.
The user type approach in this study extends the tradi-
tional understanding of user acceptance models of the
Internet by not focusing on Internet acceptance as such but
rather on how adoption and use differ related to distinct
user types.
6.1. Future research
We recommend that future researchers should focus on
the validation of our Internet user typology. Because this
study revealed differences among several countries, an
extension of our typology approach to more countries,
especially non-western cultures, promises interesting results.
A detailed analysis could reveal whether the distinctions in
the various countries are based on cultural differences or are
simply different stages of Internet development within the
cultures. In particular, this detailed analysis would allow an
assessment of the stability of the identified clusters over type
and will allow us to forecast their development. Further-
more, researchers are encouraged to enlarge the question-
naire used by Eurostat (see Table 3) in terms of clustering
variables to allow an even more specific fine-tuning of the
user typology identified in this research. Further, this study
will help future research include and identify various
behaviors in relation to Internet usage, thereby assisting
scholars in their understanding of the social implications of
different types of use as independent variables or in making
predictions on how diverse user groups are likely to respond
to different forms of media usage. Finally, this study shows
that it is necessary to identify and understand how different
Internet user types develop to fully understand the digital
divide. Future research should make use of longitudinal
data to make more valid predictions of how people convert
from one user type to another.
Acknowledgements
The research leading to these results received funding
from the European CITIZEN MEDIA project (038312)
136 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138

FP6-2005-IST, the RECORD-project (180135/S10), sup- 90

Sporadic users
ported by the VERDIKT Program of the Research Council 80
Instrumental users
of Norway, and the R2D2 Networks project (193018; 70

% within age group

Non users
CELTIC and VERDIKT program). Thanks are due to 60 Advanced users
the Statistical Offices in Spain, Norway, Austria, Sweden Entertainment users
50
and UK for providing us the Eurostat micro-data for their
40
representing countries. Thanks are also due to the anon-
ymous reviewers for their useful comments. 30
20
10
0
Appendix A 16-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74
Age Group
See Figs. A1–A5 and Tables A1 and A2.
Fig. A3. User types by age group (N =12,666). Note: The figure shows that
all user types are related to age and that the proportion of Non-Users
increases dramatically with age, while the proportion of Entertainment and
Sporadic Users decreases. Advanced and Instrumental Users have a ‘‘rise-
and-fall’’ shape in relation to age, with the proportion of Advanced Users
achieving its peak in the 25–34 age group, while Instrumental Users have a
peak between the ages of 35–54.
Validity

60
% within houshold category

Sporadic users
Instrumental users
50
Non users
Number of clusters Advanced users
40
Entertainment users

Fig. A1. The validity measure of Ray and Turi (1999) as a function of the 30
number of clusters (K) in the K-means analysis. Note: According to the
procedure shown in this figure, the validity measure is calculated as the ratio 20
between the mean intra-cluster distances, i.e., the distance between a point and
its cluster center, and the minimum inter-cluster distance; the minimum 10
distance between any two clusters. We calculated this measure for all solutions
for K=2–20. In general, the smaller the validity measure, the better the 0
separation between clusters. The two-cluster solution split the sample into users 1 2 3 4 or more
and Non-Users. The three-cluster solution divided the users into two groups: Members in houshold
high vs. low levels of Internet usage. Our judgment was that these distinctions
would not bring much new insight to the field, so we decided to extract five Fig. A4. User types by number of members in household (N=12,666).
clusters where the validity function had a clear local minimum. A pilot study Note: Non-Users decrease with the number of household members, while
also extracted five clusters. This final cluster solution has in addition theoretical Entertainment Users, and to some extent the Sporadic Users, increase. The
justification in Brandtzæg’s (2010) model of a unified media user typology. proportions of Instrumental and Advanced Users are relatively constant
across household category.

90
% withinn access category

50 80 Sporadic users
Sporadic users
% within gender category

45 70 Instrumental users
Instrumental users Non users
40 60
Non users Advanced users
35 50
Advanced users Entertainment users
30 40
Entertainment users
25 30
20
20
10
15
0
10 Access to PC no Narrowband Broadband Internet
No access Internet connection Internet connection connection
5
0 Access to PC and Internet at home
Male Female
Gender Fig. A5. User types per access category (N=12,666). Note: There is an
obvious decline in the proportion of Non-Users as access increases because
Fig. A2. User types by gender (N=12,666). Note: There are some the proportion of Advanced and Entertainment Users increases with
differences between the genders with regard to user types, but these are increased access. The most frequent user type among users that only have
not very large. There are generally more female than male Non-Users and access to a PC and not the Internet is the Sporadic Users, while the
somewhat more male Advanced and Entertainment Users. Instrumental Users typically have a narrowband connection.
 P.B. Brandtzæg et al. / Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 69 (2011) 123–138 137

Table A1
Proportional sampling in the selected countries and the distribution of gender and population to mirror the real distributions.

Out of new sample (N) In new sample (N) Original sample (N) New sample (%) Population (%)

Male Norway 402 205 607 1.6 1.8

Male Sweden 1240 445 1685 3.5 3.6
Male Austria 6045 397 6442 3.1 3.2
Male UK 20 2989 3009 23.6 23.5
Male Spain 6533 2132 8665 16.8 17.1
Female Norway 382 246 628 1.9 1.9
Female Sweden 1342 463 1805 3.7 3.6
Female Austria 6295 417 6712 3.3 3.4
Female UK 734 3080 3814 24.3 24.3
Female Spain 8443 2292 10,735 18.1 17.6

Sum 31,436 12,666 44,102 100 100

Table A2
Comparing the real distribution of population and gender in the selected countries with the original sample.

Gender and country In sample (N) In real 2006

Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage

Male Norway 607 1.4 2,301,696 1.8

Male Sweden 1685 3.8 4,485,747 3.6
Male Austria 6442 14.6 4,018,437 3.2
Male UK 3009 6.8 29,575,438 23.5
Male Spain 8665 19.6 21,566,412 17.1
Female Norway 628 1.4 2,338,523 1.9
Female Sweden 1805 4.1 4,562,005 3.6
Female Austria 6712 15.2 4,247,488 3.4
Female UK 3814 8.6 30,817,606 24.3
Female Spain 10,735 24.3 22,191,838 17.6

Total 44,102 100 126,105,190 100

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