People who use the Internet aren't giving up more traditional sources of print or broadcast information -- far from it, says a new study.

An excerpt from the Toronto Star story:

The study, one of the largest and most comprehensive ever conducted on Internet users in Canada, found that those who use Google, Yahoo and other online sources to get their daily dose of news are more likely to pick up a newspaper, read a book or flip through a magazine than non-users of the Internet.

Newspapers were cited by 59 per cent of Internet users as an important source of information, compared to 50 per cent of non-users, while books were important for 55 per cent of Web surfers compared to 38 per cent of non-users.

A similar trend could be found for magazines and radio, with television being the only medium considered more important by offline Canadians.

“While Internet use has a measurable displacement effect - with some time that might have been spent watching television, listening to the radio or reading magazines and newspapers instead devoted to the Internet - our data support the general conclusion that, for most users, the Internet serves more as a supplement to traditional media than a replacement,” the study concluded.

“Internet users, it would seem, are simply more media-oriented than are non-users.”

The results are based on a survey of 3,014 Canadians at least 18 years old who answered questions in a telephone interview in May and June of last year. The margin of error is 1.8 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

The study is the first to come out of the Canadian Internet Project, an ongoing research initiative led by a consortium of universities and supported with provincial, federal and private-sector funding. It’s Canada’s contribution to the World Internet Project, a global research group working to compile and compare data about Internet use around the world based on standardized surveys. The project involves more than 25 countries.

You can find the full report or executive summaries here.