The survey, from the US-based Center for the Digital Future, of 2,000 individuals forms part of a six-year study into attitudes to the web.

Each year, the University of Southern California researchers publish data tracking the changing opinions of the same American households to the internet.

On the results of their sixth report, Jeffrey Cole, director of the centre, said: "More than a decade after the portals of the worldwide web opened to the public, we are now witnessing the true emergence of the internet as the powerful personal and social phenomenon we knew it would become."

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