Oct 01 1999: Email has replaced research as the primary reason why people in the United States go online. PriceWaterhouseCoopers' 1999 Consumer Technology survey found that 48 percent of US users polled said they went online for email while 28 percent said they went online to research. Last year those figures were exactly in reverse.   The company polled 800 users in the US, Germany, France and the UK and found that in the UK, 39 percent go online for email while 37 percent go online for research. In Germany and France people use the Internet primarily for research.   The survey found that Internet access in the UK had nearly doubled to 24 percent in a year, while home access in the US was at 43 percent, up from 27 percent last year.   Users in the UK, France and Germany spend an average of 2.4 hours online per week while US users spend an average of 5.3 hours online per week.