Turks use Internet for surfing and Facebook

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

The little boy in this photo is looking at Facebook. Some 82 percent of Turkish households use the web for Facebook. Hürriyet photo

Most Turkish households use their Internet simply to “surf” the web, while the second most popular use is to access Facebook, according to a study prepared by Türk Telekom and Ipsos KMG analyzing Turkey’s first quarter 2012 internet usage.

The study encompassed households in 38 different Turkish provinces. Some 87 percent of households primarily use the Internet for surfing, while 82 percent use it to access Facebook. Some 76 percent use the Internet to check their emails and 71 percent use it to chat online. Other popular uses of the Internet include listening to music (67 percent), watching films or videos (66 percent), reading the news (61 percent), playing online games (55 percent), using Twitter (31 percent), online shopping (24 percent), and Internet banking (23 percent), the study reveals.

Most houses use computers

According to the study, 52 percent, or 9.9 million, of Turkey’s 19.1 million households use computers and 41 percent are connected to the internet. The study unsurprisingly reveals that as the number of Turkish households with computers goes up, so does internet usage. 60.9 percent of Turkey’s internet users are male, while 39.1 percent are female. Half of Turkey’s Internet users are between the ages of 18 to 34.

The study also notes a sharp drop in internet cafe usage, with most users now preferring to connect from home using ADSL connections. Some 31.2 percent of Turkish households use an ADSL connection, while 9.9 percent use a 3G modem, cable and fiber connections. Furthermore, 96 percent are satisfied with their choice of internet connection and have no desire to switch to something else. Some 74.6 percent said that they would choose ADSL for a new connection, followed by fiber at second place.

Meanwhile, 34.6 percent of households use desktop computers, while 20.6 percent use laptops.

The percentage of households that use both desktop and laptop computers is only 4.2 percent, while only 0.7 percent use new generation notepads and 0.2 percent use tablets.