Slashdot Mirror
Internet Use Grows to 69 Percent of US Adults
NickABusey writes "According to Harris Interactive, more than two-thirds, or 69 percent of American adults were internet users last year. This is up from only 56 percent in 1999 and a measley 9 percent in 1995. Perhaps more noteworthy is the increase in users with high-speed Internet connections. In 2001 is was 22 percent, now it is up to 37 percent."
69 percent of US adults use the Internet. Sounds good, right? Here's the problem...
Most of these people probably do not use the Internet for something truly worthwhile. By that I claim that instead of doing research or reading various news sources to gain an unbiased perspective on the world around us, people mostly are just forwarding silly emails, chatting mindlessly with their peers, searching for pornography, and downloading crappy quality pirated music files.
The Internet has changed my life. I have a news source for each aspect of life that I must keep up on. I can read the NY Times, Slashdot, live Associated Press feeds, and much more. I don't have to rely on biased news sources (FOX, anyone?) to brainwash me into a Republican prosumer.
I also used the Internet to first teach myself about programming. A few years ago, I found an Open-Source project and just jumped right in. Using the Web interface, IRC, etc., I was able to teach myself proper C++ coding and Linux system software design. I started my own Linux company last year.
What I'm saying is just that I wish people truly knew what they were doing more with respect to computers and the Internet. I fear that 30% of this 69% sample group probably doesn't even know how to use Google to find Web sites, USENET postings, pictures, news articles, etc. That's truly sad.
I don't mean to champion intellectual pursuits too much. I do agree that the Web and Internet as a whole has a lot to offer in the way of social progress, but as I see test scores continue to drop and standards get lowered for our next generation of children, I can't help but wonder if little things like these could be changed to make all of our futures better and brighter.
Thanks for reading, friend.
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
Music.
It's not surprising that 60% are college students. Considering the root of the internet to academic insitutions.
And while it's not surprising only 7% are over 65, considering that constitutes over 10 million, I'd say that there are plenty of old people using the internet. Granted, that might still be a small percentage of the number of old people alive in the US, but 10M is nothing to scoff at.
Considering that many old people tend to be conservative and how many people online use email and get porn spam, I'm surprised the politicians don't take a firmer stand. I would assume this based would really support tougher legislation than what's being proposed.
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
I can't believe he is saying that slashdot is unbiased.
Their bias is in their slogan: "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Its biased towards the "Nerds" group and someone has to make a decision on what "matters" and what doesn't.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I don't know anyone who doesn't use the net. I even know crack whores and bums that use the net. Who are the 31% that don't use the net? Maybe that's the 31% of America that is illiterate, or the 31% of America that is in prison.
and a measley 9 percent in 1995.
That seems a little high. The internet was still a hard-core geek-toy in 95. Most people interested in on-line stuff used proprietary services like CompuServe, AOL, Prodigy, etc. Perhaps they are counting office email.
Table-ized A.I.
>> ALL news sources of some degree of bias.
But in the case of FOX news, its the highest degree and simply unacceptable for most of the people. You can see many articles(or comments) which support microsoft in slashdot. You can also see many articles which criticize US actions in Iraq but almost none in FOX. Thats the difference.
http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
I wonder what percentage of bandwidth consumption is due to porn. Video files being much larger and all and porn already being one of biggest (if not the biggest) businesses online.
And I wonder what the ratio of porn downloads are of college students versus everyone else. With the high-speed connections, I'm sure college students consume the most bandwidth. But I'm also sure that they're not consumers (in financial terms) anywhere to the same degree as they are file-traders.
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
everyone is so quick to point out the 69%.
so cool!
i'm trying to figure out the other 31%. three out of ten adults have never used the internet.
"Yeah, that whole internet thing... i mean, i've heard about it, but don't really know what it's all about. something about some dots and coms. the whole thing just seems too confusing to me!" Annie Jenkins, domestic engineer, 37 y.o. - part of the other 31%.
I won't argue that the comments on Slashdot are good and they help balance the bias, but you also have to consider the bias of the audience that comments on Slashdot. Slashdot is 'News for Nerds', and hence those of us that read it, whether we like it or not, have the bias of a somewhat technically literate crowd.
In the real world, some people still buy Microsoft, some get frustrated with Linux, some could care less about Martian rovers on the moon... Maybe the world would be better off if it thought like the average Slashdot reader, but then again, maybe not.
On this thread overall, it's probably good to read other perspectives, but I'm kind of surprised that there's discussion about some internet use being more worthwhile than someone else's use. Personally, I think that keeping in touch with friends and family is more worthwhile than my news reading, but that's me. Conversation and the sharing of ideas, other than an opposable thumb, is what makes us human. So writing off a person who just writes e-mail and chats with their friends as not putting the internet to good use is disturbing. Most of these news sources quoted (other than slashdot of course) are one-way communication. It's generally the discussion with others that gives us insight and other perspectives. Why else would commenting on blogs be popular?
I think that the internet also adds many conveniences that are worthwhile - I can do all of my finances online, and can pay my bills while on vacation. I can order things from another state without leaving my living room. I can get directions from my house without having to ask anyone. I can even converse and argue with random people I don't know about stuff on Slashdot. My guess is that if you polled those people that said they use the internet, few would consider their use of it not to be worthwhile.
I found this link to a court case on truth (or lack of) in journalism.
"In a written decision, the Court held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a "policy," not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation."
The topic? BHA. The media agency just happened to be Fox Television.
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
I agree with everything you said, except for the quote above. It really bugs me when people complain about biased news-sources. Of course they're biased, everyone is biased, no one approaches anything nuetrally. The best way to get a good idea of what's really going on is to read a wide variety of sources and to keep the sources' biases in mind as you read. Lucky for us, the internet makes it incredibly easy to do that.
I think the key to the theory of unbiased news via the internet is the multiple sources that are available.
... is how many people have more than one choice in broadband providers. We won't see serious changes in costs and terms of service until a lot more people have alternatives.
In my neighborhood (Bowie, MD, USA) DSL doesn't work (we're behind a digital switch - hell, normal dialup never goes over 28 kbaud), so our broadband options are Comcast or satellite. Satellite has unacceptable latency for my purposes (ssh), so it's Comcast. Their terms of service suck - servers of any kind are illegal (currently tolerated by the network, but they could change that anytime). I'd vote with my feet, but there's no alternative short of my own T1.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.