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U.S. Home Internet Access up to 75%
waytoomuchcoffee writes "Over 200 million U.S. residents now have access to the internet at home, or 3/4 of the U.S. population. This is quite a jump, as only 51% of U.S. homes had access to the internet in August of 2000. Interestingly, among age/gender groups, internet access is highest among females 35-54."
In December 2003 only 126 million Americans were online. Also, interesting to note that 66 mln use the Internet on a daily basis.
About 30 million Americans are accessing the Internet from some place other than home or work. School, neighbor's house or friend's house, and libraries.
#2) The data was collected using random-digit dialing. Obviously, the people who don't have phones are more likely to not have internet access too. I wouldn't discount this factor.
Good point, but it's already accounted for in the survey. If you look at the definition of the base "population" (i.e., the denominator in the ratio), Nielsen defines it as "Total persons in the U.S. aged 2 and above, living in households equipped with a landline phone." So they are saying, in effect, that three-quarters of telephone-equipped households have online access.
Also remember that the national Do Not Call registry has an exception for telephone surveys, so Nielsen can still call just about anybody to conduct these surveys. The more interesting question is whether the very small subset of people who actually agree to participate are typical of the population as a whole.
http://www.theESA.com/pressroom.html
FYI: 39% of gamers are women, but they buy most games.
The electronics stat was posted on Slashdot a few days ago...I'd look for it, but I'm busy working...
Can I bum a sig?
Clearly, you did not RTFA.
They call people and ask them if they have internet access. They would only call you once, hence you would only be counted once.
True, these statistics do not count how long someone is online. If your mother-in-law checks her email and is online for 5 minutes a day to do so, she is counted the same as someone who is on for 8 hours a day surfing the web. However, your mother-in-law still has internet access at home, so I believe it is valid that she is counted.
These statistics are VERY accurate. They really tell us that 75% of the people with phones have Internet access. There are some people who can't afford phones who probably don't have Internet access, and there are people like me who don't have a home phone but do have Internet access that wouldn't be included in the survey (assuming they don't call cell phones).
However, these numbers probably cancel each other out to the point of being a statistical nusiance. 75% is most likely very accurate.
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
Oh, I get your parent's post, it's just that the way you wrote your post (potentially unclear content directly followed by your name) made it joke fodder.
Incidentally... I think a lot of people are using Insightful mods now to mod Funny posts up so that the poster gets Karma. Downmods from a Funny post can hurt your Karma, but upmods to Funny don't help it, so a lot of people seem to be short-circuiting this oddity by using karma-giving upmods on Funny posts and hoping that the reader is smart enough not to rely on the mod result to determine what is and isn't a joke.
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