Shocking New Study reveals Internet Users Have 24 Hours per Day

A shocking new study by the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society discovers (full study):

time spent on the Internet is time taken away from other activities.

and

use of the Internet has displaced television watching and a range of other activities. Internet users watch television for one hour and 42 minutes a day, compared with the national average of two hours

and

an hour of time spent using the Internet reduces face-to-face contact with friends, co-workers and family by 23.5 minutes, lowers the amount of time spent watching television by 10 minutes and shortens sleep by 8.5 minutes

Yet

57 percent of Internet use was devoted to communications like e-mail, instant messaging and chat rooms

and

Of the time devoted to communication, just a sixth was spent staying in touch with family members, significantly less than the time spent on work-related communications and contact with friends

Although the study finds internet users engage in less face to face communication, the study does not appear to address whether internet users have more overall contact with friends and family than noninternet users. I suspect that internet users do have more frequent contact with friends and family than noninternet users. Anyone have data on this?

The NYT's summary of the study is available here (registration required).

More details: Time diary studies published by IT&Society in 2002.