iWorld
US internet use eats into TV viewing & socialising: Survey
MUMBAI: According to a recent study by the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society (SIQQS), the time spent by the average internet user in the United States of America using the internet cuts into the time he spends for television viewing and family.
The surfing time is mainly drawn from the family time than the television time.
The study found that as much as 75 per cent of the population in the United States now has access to the internet either at home or work.
According to the study, the time an internet user spends online is 3 hours per day, while the time he spends on TV is 1.7 hours. Internet users watch television for one hour and 42 minutes a day in the United States, compared with the national average of two hours, points out the study.
SIQQS director Norman Nie points says it is not the TV viewing more affected by the web phenomenon, but the time spent for family. He has been quoted in media reports as saying, “We were very interested to discover that the increase in Internet use over the last 10 years has eaten into television viewing less than expected. Time online seems to come more out of family discretionary time.”
According to the study, an hour of time spent using the Internet reduces the time spent on social life by 23.5 minutes, lowers the amount of time spent watching television by 10 minutes and shortens sleep by 8.5 minutes.
SIQQS collected the data from a representative sample of 4,839 American respondents between the ages of 18 and 64 in June 2004. Respondents were asked to create detailed diaries of how they spent their time during six randomly selected hours of the previous day.
While breaking up the internet consumption time, 57 per cent of the use was devoted to communications (e-mail, instant messaging and chat rooms) and 43 per cent for other activities including web browsing, shopping and game playing. Users said they spent 8.7 percent of their internet time playing online games. The study also found that users spend a small portion of their online time in contact with family members.
The study states that time spent on spam accounts for five minutes of every hour spent online, which translates into10 8-hour workdays per year. The researchers found that the amount of internet use does not differ by gender. But women on average use e-mail, instant messaging and social networking more than men, while men spend more time browsing, reading discussion groups and participating in chat rooms. About the percentage of respondents who use internet by education, the survey rates people having bachelor’s degree or higher as the top with 43.2 per cent, followed by those attended some college (33.1 per cent).
iWorld
Akhil Gupta retires as Bharti Enterprises vice chairman after three decades
The man who outsourced Airtel’s network and built Indus Towers leaves behind a telecom industry transformed
NEW DELHI: He was not the most visible face of Bharti. He was, by most accounts, the most consequential one. Akhil Gupta, known within the group simply as AKG, has retired as vice chairman of Bharti Enterprises with effect from March 31st, 2026, closing a chapter that stretched across more than three decades and reshaped Indian telecoms in ways still felt today.
Gupta was there at the beginning, part of the core leadership team that steered Bharti Airtel from a scrappy domestic operator into one of the world’s largest telecom and digital services companies. But it is two decisions in particular that cement his legacy. The first was persuading the industry that a telecom company need not own its own network. His outsourcing partnerships with IBM and Ericsson, considered eccentric at the time, stripped out capital costs and sharpened Airtel’s competitive edge. The model was subsequently copied across the global industry. The second was the creation of Indus Towers, now one of the largest tower companies in the world.
Both initiatives were studied as case material at Harvard Business School, where Gupta himself had studied. A chartered accountant by training and a dealmaker by instinct, he accumulated industry accolades across his career without ever particularly courting the limelight.
Bharti Enterprises, announcing the retirement on LinkedIn, credited Gupta with building the foundation of the group’s success and driving innovation, partnerships and long-term value creation.
The tributes are deserved. Gupta did not just help build Airtel. In many respects, he helped invent the playbook that modern telecoms runs on.
