The Rich Use the Web Mostly for Money, Food & Porn

Posted: 25 May 2011 01:23 PM PDT

In real life, the wealthy have many of the same preoccupations of the rest of us: money, food and other things that will go unmentioned, since we're a family blog.

As it turns out, they have many of the same preoccupations online. But their priorities online are slightly different from the rest of the population's.

According to a survey from the Affluence Collaborative, the primary online activity for the wealthy is to “check your bank account or make online money transfers.” Fully 86% of those earning $500,000 or more said they go online for banking. That's roughly equal to the rest of the population.

But there are three areas where the rich differ: food, news and sex.

According to the survey, the wealthy consumer read more news online. Fully 70% read national news websites (including WSJ), compared to only 44% for the general population.

And the wealthy use the web far more for restaurants. Fully 61% use the web to make a reservation at a restaurant or “check into” a location, using sites like Foursquare. Only 13% of the rest of the population uses the web for restaurant reservations, and only 23% use the “check in” sites.

As for sex, fully 38% of the wealthy visit adult sites, far higher than the 23% for the rest of the population.

There was one area where the wealthy lagged the rest of the population: wasting time. The wealthy were less likely than the rest of the population to “casually surf the web and pass time.”

Do you think the wealthy are different online?