The New Face of Internet User Typology: The Case of Thailand

As the number of Internet users grows rapidly, the way users access the Internet and their behavior change. This study focuses on Internet user typology, which is an area that has not been recently examined. The research explores whether the Internet user typology specified in previous literature is still applicable in the present and, if not, what has changed. The results reveal that the previous way of categorizing users into several types based on their activities alone is no longer applicable. Consequently, the researcher proposed a new methodology to group users based on applications and the frequency of accessing them, coupled with the use of demographic data. The survey-based cluster analysis shows four Internet user types in Thailand. Only one group is similar to previous literature, which is the non-users. In addition, there are three new groups of users that have characteristics that are completely different from the typologies in the previous literature. The most interesting and unexpected finding is the new type of user that the researcher calls the self-satisficing group, the name of which could be related to the concept of satisficing theory in economics.