DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02719
title: CBS News 'CBS.Marketwatch.Com' Internet Poll, January 1999
title: Archival Version

description: This special topic poll, fielded January 27-February 2, 
 1999, queried respondents on their attitudes regarding the Internet. 
 Through a telephone survey, respondents were asked a series of 
 questions about their awareness of, access to, understanding of, and 
 usage of computers, electronic mail, the Internet, and online 
 services. Those queried were asked whether their contact with this 
 technology was limited or extensive and for work or personal use, 
 whether computers and the Internet create or solve problems, whether 
 the Internet brings people together or isolates them, and whether 
 news and information obtained through the Internet is reliable. A 
 series of questions sought respondents' experiences using the 
 Internet to obtain the latest financial and sports news, product 
 information, travel information, and entertainment information, to 
 purchase products or travel tickets, to make hotel reservations, and 
 to watch shows, play games, and visit adult entertainment sites. 
 Respondents were asked about their knowledge of and experiences with 
 the websites and online services of ESPN, Barnes and Noble, E-bay, 
 Merrill Lynch, Amazon.com, E-trade, CBS.Marketwatch.com, AOL.com, 
 Sportsline, Yahoo, CNN-F-N, and C-NET. Those queried were asked a 
 series of questions about stock market investments and the Internet, 
 including whether they had bought or traded stocks through the 
 Internet, the speed of those transactions, and how frequently they 
 checked their investments through online services. A series of 
 questions addressed the use of electronic mail (e-mail), including 
 frequency of use, whether email makes keeping in touch with others 
 easier, whether the respondent had communicated through this media 
 with someone they had never met in person and, for those not 
 currently using the service, whether they felt left out. Further 
 questions focused on respondents' computer skills, including the age 
 at which the respondent first encountered computers and the Internet, 
 their comfort level with this technology, and whether the lack or 
 presence of computer skills had ever aided them in, or prevented them 
 from, obtaining a job. Additional topics covered the importance of 
 the Internet to school-age children, whether the Internet plays a 
 major role in their daily activities, the presence of advertising on 
 websites, and concern over the theft of personal information, child 
 access to inappropriate information on the Internet, and the Y2K bug. 
 The results of this survey were announced on the CBS website 
 CBS.Marketwatch.com. Background information on respondents includes 
 age, race, sex, education, religion, marital status, employment 
 status, Hispanic origin, political party, political orientation, 
 voter registration and participation history, age of children in 
 household, family income, Internet and computer access, and measures 
taken to prevent child access to inappropriate Internet sites.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: CBS News 'CBS.Marketwatch.Com' Internet Poll, January 1999
description: (1) This collection has not been processed by ICPSR 
 staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this 
 collection in essentially the same form in which they were received. 
 When appropriate, hardcopy documentation has been converted to 
 machine-readable form and variables have been recoded to ensure 
 respondents' anonymity. (2) The codebook is provided as a Portable 
 Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by 
 Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader 
 software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to 
 obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided through the ICPSR 
Website on the Internet.