Results from a survey conducted by the University of Wisconsin’s Division of Information Technology (DoIT) found students on campus are becoming progressively more consumed with the Internet for personal and informational use.

The study reported an average student usage of 22 hours per week.

This is the eleventh annual survey DoIT has conducted on this issue, and as Barry Radler, senior marketing specialist and conductor of the study noted, “There’s been phenomenal growth … I know from the research that we’re doing that [the Internet] has become so central in campus life.”

The survey also found that although computer ownership rests at about 92 percent within all class levels of the student population, campus computer labs and kiosks are becoming more frequented by students. Also, students reported accessing the Internet in a variety of ways, with a decreased number using telephone modems for access.

Results also showed that 80 percent of students have more than one e-mail address, of which 83 percent check more than twice a day. In addition, 62 percent of those surveyed, most of whom are freshmen and sophomores, said they use instant messaging.

Radler said such a dependency on these technological mediums is not necessarily a positive thing, for he feels that technology is a double-edged sword that “cuts both ways.”

“The resources it opens up is incredible … but it has permeated social lives,” Radler said.

UW sophomore Sofia Gaudioso, who uses the Internet for talking to friends, checking e-mail, file-swapping and academic research, feels that the Internet can have both positive and negative repercussions on her social life.

“It’s just another source of procrastination … It distracts me all the time, but if I didn’t use the Internet, I’d be doing something else. It’s all relative,” Gaudioso said.

Gaudioso also feels that having the world right at your fingertips can lead society to start regarding the computer as the sole source of outside life.

UW freshman Craig Schiller agrees.

“The more things we can do on the Internet, the more our society becomes based around a single computer,” Schiller said.

Such concerns have become the focus of campus campaigns advocating for a more appropriate educational use for the Internet, according to Radler. For example, Radler said the campus has been struggling with the problem of file-sharing, and thus the campus is strongly encouraging the use of the Internet’s educational components.

Similarly, UW freshman Diana Baumann said the educational benefits greatly outweigh the other communicative and entertaining aspects the Internet has to offer.

“In general I believe that the Internet has opened a new spectrum of academic opportunities for me,” Baumann said. “I have unlimited resources that are readily available, I can find multiple points of views on any subject and I am better able to correspond with my professors.”

Although Radler is uncertain about the future of Internet usage, he hopes the beneficial components of the Internet will outweigh the countering negative ones.

“Because it is a communication medium, you would think that at some point it would level off,” Radler said.

In either situation, Radler could not help but express surprise at the advances technology has made within the past few years, especially in comparison with communication mediums of the past, which often took them numerous years to become popular within the majority of a population, whereas the Internet has experienced quicker popularity growth.

Rader said because the survey is polled from a random sample within the student population, there is no way for DoIT to attribute a particular cause to the recent popularity surge of the Internet.

“It’s hard to pinpoint a reason for it,” Radler said.