Interview with Margot Beauchamps and Nicolas Deporte of GIS M@rsouin, partner in the ANR Capacity project. The researchers present the survey and analysis methodology of the Capacity project, as well as a preview of some elements that emerged from the survey conducted from November to December 2016.

MB: The GIS Marsouin is a network of researchers in social sciences, gathering about a hundred Breton researchers working on the uses of the Internet and the way they transform the society. This network was founded in 2002, by the Regional Council of Brittany, which finances it in major part. It has two main missions, one being to federate research in social sciences on digital uses at the regional level, but also to regularly carry out surveys on digital uses among certain publics, individuals, companies and local authorities.

MB: The ARCEP/CGE barometer is carried out every year, to take stock of how the French use digital technology. The Capacity survey has been carried out only once, to answer a research question about the potential of the Internet in terms of empowerment of Internet users. It therefore answers both a research question, which is supported by the Capacity project, financed by the ANR, and a public policy issue, which is why the Agence du Numérique has supported the Capacity survey.

MB: The Capacity questionnaire includes a set of questions on connectivity, equipment, frequency and diversity of Internet use, a set of questions on digital skills, and another set of questions on the benefits that each person derives from using the Internet, in terms of sociability, purchasing power, ability to learn... The questionnaire also includes questions on online administrative procedures, and of course, a set of questions on age, gender, social class, level of education and household composition.

Some of the questions are common to those of the WIP [World Internet Project]: they concern the impact of the Internet in political terms, but also the fears and infringements of privacy.

MB: The power to act is the result of empowerment, also called capability, which refers to the capacity [...] that individuals have to take power over their lives, to take their future in hand. It is a rather complex notion that covers several dimensions: the ability to train, to learn, to participate in social and political life, to find the means to earn a living, to increase one's purchasing power... The difficulty, when constructing a questionnaire on the link between empowerment and internet use, is to distinguish between what can be attributed to digital technology and what is independent of it: it is therefore necessary to ask, for example, whether the internet has enabled the respondent to train, to keep in touch with acquaintances, to open up to other social circles, to increase his or her purchasing power, or even to become informed about political life.

ND: The survey took place late last year [November-December 2016]. It collected data from 2,000 French people, representative of French society aged 18 and over. Representativeness is ensured by the quota method: on gender, age, Socio-Professional Category (SPC) thus profession, region of residence, and size of the urban area. This is a way of ensuring that the sample we will then process is representative, identical in the end (in smaller numbers) to the French population.

The interviews are conducted face-to-face. The main advantage of face-to-face interviews compared to other methods (telephone, online questionnaire), especially for the digital question, is that they do not require any equipment: telephone or internet communication. The questionnaires can also be a little longer. Face-to-face, people are generally more patient, more available than by phone. This also gives the possibility to explain the questions, if ever there are difficulties in understanding the terms used: the interviewer is present, and his explanation can facilitate the understanding.

As far as the themes addressed are concerned, the questionnaire is quite vast: equipment, digital uses (their diversity, their frequency), skills, attitudes, or the representations that people have of the digital world, and then a more specific part on the power to act. This questionnaire was intended to feed several works, on the one hand the research works for the Capacity project, on the other hand the reflections of the Agence du Numérique, and then the World Internet Project.

ND: Once the surveys are completed, all the results are put together in a database, and this database is then processed statistically. The first step is usually to do "flat sorts", to see the numbers for each of the response modes, in order to have an overall view of the responses obtained for the questionnaire, question by question.

Then, quite quickly, we will cross-reference the questions, cross-reference the variables, and test the links that appear, by cross-referencing, tests of dependence between variables. Then more advanced analyses are carried out: here, for example, I make a typology of individuals in relation to digital technology, and I look at the distribution of the French population in relation to this typology.

ND: In addition to the data processing that we do internally (which I mentioned earlier), we have a tool, ShinyMarsouin. It is a web platform that I developed in R language, which allows us to visualize and study Marsouin survey data. The platform is online, and it is completely accessible to everyone. All you need is an internet connection to explore the data, make graphs, tables, and perform statistical analysis to test hypotheses. There is no need to know how to program, you just have to select the variables. I have developed this platform to allow everyone, researchers, students, communities, to be able to exploit our data, without necessarily having statistical processing software already.

And for those who wish to go further, they can download the data from ShinyMarsouin in CSV format, and import them into their usual processing software.

MB: At the end of 2016, when the survey was conducted, 83% of French people were considered Internet users - according to the definition we used, i.e., they had used the Internet at least once in the past three months. There are as many Internet users among men as among women, but differences appear according to the CSP or according to age. Young people are more connected to the Internet than older people, however, even among the over 65s, a majority (65%) is connected to the Internet. Concerning the differences between the different categories, executives and intermediate professions are proportionally more likely to use the Internet, especially more than farmers and workers.

On the whole, French Internet users declare themselves rather comfortable with the use of the Internet. Only 15% declare themselves "not at ease" or "not at all at ease with the Internet". And even among the oldest, a majority declare themselves "quite comfortable" with the use of the Internet. This feeling is strongest among the youngest and most educated, but among the oldest age groups, 65% say they are comfortable with the Internet.

The proportion of the population connected to the Internet also varies by region. We can see that the Paris region has the highest proportion of Internet users, and it is in the Northeast that it is the lowest.

MB: The first comparisons we were able to make by comparing French data with that of the other WIP countries reveal specificities of French Internet users. This is particularly the case for the mistrust that French Internet users have of the information that circulates on the Internet. [In terms of privacy protection and fears about privacy violations, companies and governments appear to be the most likely to violate privacy.

MB: Almost half of French Internet users say that the Internet has given them opportunities to train. This is particularly true of the youngest and most educated people. In terms of CSP, executives and students are the ones who say that the Internet has given them the most opportunities to learn. Apart from blue-collar and white-collar workers, the majority of whom said that they had not benefited from opportunities to learn thanks to the Internet, all the CSPs agreed on this question.

Concerning social opportunities, 45% of French Internet users declare that the Internet has allowed them to open up to other social circles. Younger people are more likely to declare that they have been able to open up to other social circles. The employees and to a lesser extent the workers declare to have opened up to other social circles thanks to the Internet, more than the executives or other CSP.

In terms of purchasing power, those who benefit from the internet are not those with the lowest incomes or the lowest level of education, but rather those with higher incomes - not necessarily the richest, but the middle/upper class. To measure this dimension, we asked questions about how people use the internet to save money in their purchases, but also about exchanges to sell or rent certain products or services.

As for mobile uses, 3/4 of the French own a smartphone: nearly 60% use it every day or almost every day to connect to the Internet. Most of them say they are "quite comfortable" using their smartphones when they travel, to look at transport timetables or find routes; however, they are less comfortable using paid mobile applications to manage their expenses.

MB: One of the most surprising results of the survey was when non-users were asked whether or not they were satisfied with not using the internet. A large majority said they were happier without using the internet. For the most part, they have no intention of starting to use the internet, - the main reason for not using it is "lack of interest". (...) When asked "Do you feel proud of not using the internet?", a large majority say yes, and only 10% say that they are sometimes ashamed of not using the internet.

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