Slashdot Mirror
Pew Internet Project Study on Internet Non-Users
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.)."
I find it interesting that this rate directly coincides with the American Economy decicing to take a nice little plunge in the toilet from around the same time.
Most people view the internet, or even a computer, as a luxury item, and therefore, the monthly access fee will be one of the first things cut when times get tight.
As for lack of new growth, for most people, a PC is still a multi hundred dollar investment, and if you are not sure you are not going to have a job next week, most people will not make the investment.
You say you want a revolution....
At the rate of growth that existed in the late '90s, I expected 2,718,281% of the population of the United States to be Internet users by now. What happened?
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
thats okay. Those people will eventually die off (probably sooner rather than later).
Almost every young person uses a computer at least once a week (even if it is just to right a school paper or something)
That is evolution at its best *tear forms*
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Wait a minute, sometimes they say "have access to the internet" and other times they say "use the internet". With libraries offering free internet _access_, pretty much anyone who is willing to get off their butts and head over to a public library can have the access. Also, how about 18 and under? A poor kid from the ghetto may not have the latest PowerMac at home, but their school probably has access, and therefore the kid. I think they need to be a bit more clear here.
Plus there is the obvious breakdown by occupation. Since blacks represent a very small percentage of IT workers (IT in the broader sense) vs population, but IT workers obviously comprise a very high percentage of those with "internet access", the numbers are going to be skewed.
You can get a serviceable PC system for $300 and online for $10/month. Any family that doesn't have Internet access either has no interest in it, or is in such dire straits that they have far greater problems than being on the wrong side of the "digital divide".
Interesting how this seems to have topped out at very nearly the same penetration rates as cable television.
In cable, everyone thought that penetration was highly dependent on homes passed, that it would be a fixed percentage of how many homes could actually get wired. But although the homes passed numbers are quite high now, ultimately cable's speediest growth seems to have topped out at about 60 percent.
Same with Internet - some form of access is fairly ubiqitous now, but actual usage is topping out.
I wonder if this points to a class of telecommunications non-consumers - a certain group that simply doesn't consume or appreciate communications media enough to spend additional disposable income beyond what is freely available.
---
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
There's a whole number of reasons why I decided to be a Net Evader, some of them mentioned in the articles:
The study shows:
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
In short, growth will stop when we hit the luddites and the elderly.
First of all, segregating the population in any way by age is discriminatory, and therefore ignorant.
Secondly, did you bother to read the Washington Post article? This highlights a 22 year old Comms major who lives w/ his 60-something grandmother. Guess which one is the prolific web user? The grandmother. The elderly are not necessarily slow to adopt technology which meets their needs - keep in mind that the generation that we describe as the 'elderly' invented the computer, television, modern radio, etc etc. How can this generation be slow to adopt technologies which they helped bring into existence?
My own 75-yr old grandmother is one of the most web-savvy people I know. She communicates with all of her children & grandchildren via email & chat (she's on AIM, ICQ, and MSN chats, btw); does the majority of her shopping online (though she never did like to drive); and gets her news, etc online as well. In addition to that, she's on a Windows machine that she administers - i.e., she installs new versions of Windows, applications, configures her own web access, etc.
The rest are using AOL
Not noteable, IMO a rubbish article.
Any Non-Internet users on /.? How do you feel about the new Pew study? Post your responses below.
You are not the customer.
Yeah. Next thing you know, they'll be saying that less well-off families who put $200 into a computer and $20/month into dialup (as opposed to $200 on Air Jordans and $20/month on ESPN), tend to become better off.
I was the first one in my family to go to University. I make twice what my parents make at half their age.
No, my family wasn't dirt-poor, but we weren't rich. I could never have gone to Harvard. It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I found out that my folks had to take out a frickin' loan to get me that Apple ][ that I begged for, and that got me started.
As a result of high school hacking with that box, I never lacked for summer jobs during my college years, and I was able to graduate debt-free and land myself a good job that started off a great career.
Over 20-odd years, my folks' original investment has cranked out the kind of ROI that investment managers have wet dreams about. (I wrote that has hyperbole, but then worked it out based on the cost of the machine and the income my career has generated. My parents' ROI cleans Warren Buffet's clock)
If they had written the paper correctly, there would be no need to right it.
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
~Epictetus
I found the above portion of the article to be a little disturbing. It implies that everyone should be using the internet, yet some people resist it because of unfounded reasoning.
How about the fact that it's OK if you don't want to use the internet? If over half of the people not on the net now don't want it, I don't see what the big deal is. It isn't for everyone, and maybe shouldn't be. TV isn't for everyone, cellphones aren't for everyone. So what?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Anyone have data on the growth of TV over the years? Did it boom, then flatten out, or what?
I'd be curious to see how the TV versus Internet acceptance rates look.
It makes sense that things flatten out. Prices for Internet access are about the same as they were 5+ years ago. The people who can afford it will be more likely to get it. Just like TV's were expensive for a long time, but have now gotten cheap enough that almost everyone has one in their home (even the poor). If Internet and computer hardware rates were much less then I think we'd see more market penetration.
The ratio of people to cake is too big