Four in five adults worldwide think internet access should be a fundamental human right.

Greater freedom of speech, access to learning and the more varied forms of networking and communication were cited as reasons for the internet’s importance by the BBC-commissioned poll.

Citizens from South Korea, Mexico, China and Brazil felt most overwhelmingly that net access should be a right of all people, although countries were split over whether the service should be government-controlled, with 53% of global respondents agreeing that “the internet should never be regulated by any level of government anywhere”.

The survey also provided some surprising results when it came to freedom of speech. Citizens in France, Germany, the US and other western countries were found to be less keen on airing their opinions online than those China, Egypt and other countries with questionable civil liberties records. Nearly half of UK respondents disagreed that the internet was a safe place to air their views.

The results were drawn from 26 countries, where officials interviewed internet-users and non-users in urban and rural areas either face-to-face or via telephone. The survey was commissioned for a new BBC series called Superpower, which explores the growth of the internet.

Her youngest daughter is "addicted" to the net. She won't eat at the table and spends all her available time chatting. She is now limited to 4 hours a day, but it doesn't seem to help.

That she is currently going through a hormone change and is fairly anti-social in the family anyway doesn't help...

Before the net, some moody teenagers ran up huge phone bills (CHECK), played computer games (CHECK) and watched TV for hours a day (CHECK)

She hogs the phone during the times that her internet access is blocked (she gets 2 hours in the afternoon and 2 hours in the evening).

I'll be glad when they have moved in with me, I have an ISDN line, so she can use the second connection and we can still make/receive calls...

I'm not sure the net should be a human right, but being without it is very inconvenient.