• by Masha Geller , February 5, 2003

I will never understand why some companies feel the need to research things that everyone already knows. Take Harris Poll, for example. Today, the company proudly announced the results of a brand new survey, which shows that the online population continues to grow, that almost 70% of Americans are online from either home, office or elsewhere and that just over a quarter of online users are connected via broadband.

What gets me is that Harris felt the need to accompany these well-known truths with comments, and it’s those comments that make me see red. The first gem: one of Harris’ major discoveries is that the online population is growing at a slower pace than in the 1990s. We knew that 2 years ago! Discuss…

The second discovery: Harris found that those online tend to be somewhat younger, better educated, and more affluent than the total adult population (which we’ve known from the beginning of time), but overall the demographic profile of Internet users has become more like that of the total population and now includes many more low income and older people than it used to.

With almost 70% of American adults online, it’s [insert adverb of choice here] unbelievable that the online population would reflect the overall population, isn’t it?

The third (and my personal favorite): According to Harris, more than a quarter of all those online now have a broadband connection, and Harris thinks it is “reasonable to assume” that relatively unsophisticated Internet users are mostly using slower modems and are not using broadband. I would have thought that most people who don’t know how to set their homepage and check their email once a week would have no use for a T1 line, but that’s just me, applying elementary logic.

Just to be clear, I love research. I think good research is imperative to good business on countless levels. That’s why it annoys me to no end to see Harris waste 2,033 telephone interviews to find out that we all already knew.