Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, are planning an ambitious, long-term study designed to track the social consequences of the Internet and its expanding role in consumers' lives.

The project will involve periodic surveys of thousands of households in up to 18 countries, and has the financial backing of technology giants including America Online and Microsoft. The study is being supervised by UCLA's Center for Communication Policy, which has been a leader in researching such issues as violence in television programming.

Researchers said the study's first set of results could be released in the autumn but that it was designed to carry on for decades, and was getting under way at a critical time in communications history.

"Imagine how much we would have learned if a study of this type had been conducted of television beginning in the early 1950s," said Mr Jeffrey Cole, director of the UCLA centre and principal investigator of the study.

Mr Cole said it was the first long-term study designed to track the Internet's influence on everything from political attitudes to shopping habits. Much of the study would focus on disparities between households which used the Internet and those that did not. Preliminary surveys of 2,000 statistically selected households in the US are set to begin within six weeks, Mr Cole said.

UCLA will oversee the project, with co-operation from universities and research organisations overseas. Institutions in Singapore and Italy are set to participate the first year, but Mr Cole said that within five years the study aimed to expand to include an additional 15 countries.

The project is expected to cost between $600,000 and $800,000 per year (€574,548-€766,063), and will depend heavily on funding from sponsors including Walt Disney, Sony, GTE and Pacific Bell.