New Delhi, June 10 -- Seventy-two per cent of Indian households are now connected to the internet, yet the vast majority of that connectivity is directed at entertainment and social media rather than government services, financial access or education, according to a National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) survey covering nearly 50,000 households, which finds that how Indians connect and what they do once connected are two entirely separate questions.

The single most common use of the internet among connected Indian households is watching films, television programmes and news, at 66%. Social media follows at 53.8%, meaning that roughly two-thirds of connected homes are primarily using their internet access for content consum...