Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Pew Internet Project Study on Internet Non-Users

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the webtv dept.

cheezitmike writes "The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a new study on the digital divide and the declining growth of the Internet: "Pew Internet Project tracking data show a flattening of the overall growth of the Internet population since late 2001. Internet penetration rates have hovered between 57% and 61% since October 2001, rather than pursuing the steady climb that they had showed in prior years." You can also just read their short summary of findings or stories about the study in The Washington Post and The New York Times (free reg.)."

4 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Now with 100% less registration! by KillboyPHD · · Score: 3, Informative

    For no reg, move every sed!

    sed -e "s/www/archive/"

    http://archive.nytimes.com/2003/04/17/technology /c ircuits/17shun.html

    --
    Bah weep granah, weep ninny bong!
    1. Re:Now with 100% less registration! by DeadSea · · Score: 2, Informative

      The moderators who marked this "informative" didn't actually try it. It doesn't work (even after you remove the space). Here is the link to prove it.

  2. RTFA by robbyjo · · Score: 5, Informative

    The study shows:

    • Net Evaders: 20% (non-Internet users live with someone who uses the Internet from home).
    • Net Dropouts: 17% of non-Internet users were once users. (Most of them are dropouts because of technical problems)
    • Truly Disconnected: Some 24% of Americans are truly offline
    • Most non-users live physically and socially close to the Internet
    • 60% of non-users know of a place in their community where Internet access is publicly available, while 76% of Internet users know of public access site.
    • Younger Americans are much more wired than older Americans. Well-to-do Americans are more wired that less well-off Americans, and the employed are far more wired than the unemployed.
    • Some 56% of non-Internet users do not think they will ever go online. These people are generally the poorer, older segment of the not-online population, and are more likely to be white, female, retired and living in rural areas.
    • And so forth...

    Not the bubble burst per se. Apparently, lots of social factors come into play, which I think were not into the equation on the prediction years ago.

    --

    --
    Error 500: Internal sig error
  3. Re:57%... by SoftCoreHonesty · · Score: 2, Informative

    Anecdotal evidence means nothing. Your grandmother aside, there is a huge tech gap between those over 50 and those under 50. 71% of the people who said they would never go online are over 50. Only 6% of 18-29 year olds said they will never go online.

    I would also point out that 99.999% of the elderly did not invent the computer, television, modern radio, etc. The 0.001% that did I am pretty sure are either dead or online.