Survey estimates 9.5 million Net users

A survey of 1,000 randomly chosen Internet users queried over a 15-month period shows Net usage growing rapidly--51 percent of respondents said they only started to go online in 1995.

Conducted by Find/SVP, a New York-based market research firm, the survey was sponsored by a group of corporations including America Online, AT&T Content Services, MCI, Prodigy, and Federal Express.

According to the survey, 9.5 million Americans now use the Internet, including 8.4 million adults and 1.1 million kids under age 18. The majority of respondents surveyed said they use the Net for personal (52 percent) rather than business (35 percent) resources; 13 percent said they use it primarily for academic resources. Home-based access to the Net also beat out workplace-based access.

Thirty percent of the group survey reported AOL as their primary means of Net access. Two thirds of Web users within the survey group said they look for info weekly, with one quarter seeking information on a daily basis.

Although women made up just 35 percent of the survey group, female users are more likely to use the Net at work. One out of six female respondents uses the Net exclusively for business.