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Fig. 4.2 Time Spend on Social Media

10. Summarize the text.
Text 3

CONSUMER BENEFIT FROM USE OF THE INTERNET
27
By Fiona Scott Morton
The Internet is one of the most important innovations of the 20th
century. While Internet penetration has beengrowing rapidly in the

United States and other industrialized countries, and there are many
studies focused on its growth, there is still much work to be done to
under- stand and measure the benefits of the Internet to the consumer.

Consumers take time to learn how to use any new technol- ogy, so the
way people are using the Internet changes over time. New consumers are
continually discovering the Internet, so the mix of skills and demands

among users is changing. Also, in order for the Internet to become useful
to ordinary consumers, complementary innovations had to take place,
such as in the area of business models.

This innovation has been occurring at a great pace, so that now
there are many busi- nesses designed to sell products, services, or
information that people want to buy or access online. Business model
innovation, technological innovation, and learning on the part of

consumers imply that the effect of the Internet in 2005 is quite different
than it was five or ten years ago. Lastly, quantifying the benefits of the
Internet for consumers is particularly difficult because many of the

benefits accruing to consumers from using the Internet are extremely
hard to measure. Some consumer ben- efits are more amenable to
measurement, and research has been done on those topics.
Internet growth has been astonishing over the last ten years. In

1995, only about 7 percent of the adult American population had Inter-

27
Morton F. Scott Consumer Benefit from Use of the Internet / Fiona Scott Morton //
Innovation Policy and the Economy. – 2005. – Vol. 6. – Available at :
http://www.nber.org/chapters/c0205.pdf