Waiting on the internet: A review of the multi-disciplinary literature and suggestions for future research

Abstract

The slowness of the internet is one of the most common complaints cited by internet users, practitioners, academics and web designers. Online waiting is important because of the role it plays in the evolution and development of e-commerce. Although there are numerous references to the negative effects of online waiting, very little empirical research has been carried out on this topic. This paper is a review of the academic and professional literature on waiting on the internet. It draws on market research, system time response studies and quality-of-service studies. This review on the literature highlights many inconsistencies in previous research as well as a number of gaps in our knowledge about online waiting. The research methodologies employed in previous studies are examined. A future research agenda is outlined and suggestions are made as to how the definition of online waiting as well as the range of research methodologies may be extended.

Perceived and Actual Web Page Loading Delay

“…We believe that past research has not emphasized enough the fact that for small countries, competition is truly global. Paradoxically, and as pointed out by Ryan (2003), download delay may become a more acute problem in the future due to the increasing prevalence of broadband access encouraging the use of larger, multimedia rich files causing more internet congestion, and making the Internet less easily accessible thus penalizing emerging economies. Web access speed may end up widening the gap between the haves and the have nots.…”