Academic

How people read online [2018 Survey]

Deyan 20/04/2018

A survey of 1,001 users* shows that most web users skim and scan through web content looking for items of interest.

Sample Size: 1001
Targeting Audience: Users on websites in the Google Surveys publisher network
Sampling: Representative
Age: All Ages
Gender: All Genders
Location: Australia
Language: English
Start date:18 Apr 2018
Ending with: 20 Apr 2018

*The number shown under “respondents” represents the total unweighted data collected. You might notice a discrepancy with the number of respondents shown in the question cards due to our respondent weighting methodology.

Which best describes your online reading style?

Answers

Skim, scan and look for items of interest	61.1% +3.1% / -3.2%
Read content in full	37.8% +2.9% / -2.8%
none	0.6% +0.9% / -0.3%
whatever apt	0.1% +0.6% / -0.1%
(Other responses)	0.4% +0.4% / -0.2%

Bias Table

Grouping	Target Population	Sample	Sample Bias*
Male	50.9%	52.9%	2.0%
Female	49.1%	47.1%	-2.0%
18-24	20.3%	19.1%	-1.3%
25-34	19.7%	19.6%	-0.1%
35-44	19.1%	16.2%	-2.8%
45-54	18.0%	17.2%	-0.8%
55-64	15.0%	15.8%	0.8%
65+	7.8%	12.1%	4.2%

*Sample bias measures the difference between the predicted population sample and the actual sample. A low bias means the survey respondents accurately represent the target population.
RMSE (Root-mean-square error) Score: 2.1%