A majority of Indian Internet users get anxious when not online

Indicating towards the growing importance of Internet in the country, a survey has revealed that 46 percent of users in India spend 6 hours or more a day actively using the Internet whereas 82 percent admit to the fear of missing out when not connected. “In India, not only did 46 percent of respondents spend 6 hours or more a day actively using the Internet (in comparison to 29 percent globally), but an alarming 82 percent of respondents admit to the ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) when not connected (the highest globally),” Tata Communications said in its ‘Connected World II’ report. The report captures responses from 9,417 Internet users across six emerging and developed countries - France, Germany, India (2,117), Singapore, the US, and the UK . The report said more than half of surveyed Indian Internet users (56 percent) admit they can’t survive more than five hours without Internet connectivity. “Although surveyed Indian men spend more time on the Internet than surveyed Indian women, it is Indian women (21 percent) who outdo men (16 percent) in feeling anxious or lost when not connected to the Internet,” it said. The study further discloses that tablets and smartphones are rapidly replacing television as the preferred screen as nearly twice as many surveyed Indians (43 percent) are willing to give up television for the Internet, compared to Americans (17 percent) and Europeans (22 percent) respondents. “The Internet has truly changed the way we function. As technologies evolve and adapt, there is a huge potential for the Internet to affect different aspects of life, economy and society,” Tata Communications’ Nextgen Business Chief Marketing Officer and CEO Julie Woods-Moss said. The impact of the Internet on global economies is phenomenal. About 2.5 billion people are connected to the Internet today , that’s a third of the world’s population. By 2020, the number of connected devices is expected to rise to 26 billion. Tata Communications said 61 percent of Indian respondents believe that ’everyone owns the Internet’, compared to 70 percent globally with 21 percent rightly pointing out that each individual country owns their Internet when compared to 16 percent globally. The study also reveals that Asian respondents appear to be the most ‘Internet dependent’ with less than half of surveyed Singaporeans and Indians capable of lasting up to 12 hours without Internet access compared to 86 percent of German, 77 percent of French, 75 percent of US and 70 percent of UK respondents. Respondents from Asia and those from the USA and Europe are distinctly different in their vision of the most inspirational opportunity that the Internet will deliver in the future. “32 percent of surveyed Singaporeans and 27 percent of surveyed Indians pick smart cities as their preferred choice for what the Internet will enable in the future,” it added. Respondents from the UK, France, Germany and the USA, meanwhile, feel that light speed connectivity will be more important. “The survey results also found that 77 percent of respondents believe the most beneficial impact of the Internet is its ability to connect people globally with incredible speed,” Woods-Moss said. PTI