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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."
Surprising to male /.ers perhaps, but not us girls...I spend eight hours a day on a T-3 at work and five nights a week on my cable connection at home. Typical home activities include updating my Web page, trolling forums, email/messaging friends, playing competitive leagues Counter-Strike, and shopping. At work, when I'm not /.ing, I'm a communications coordinator (writer & designer). I use the 'Net for research, purchasing, and communication with my colleagues.
You guys keep being surprised, but women make up half the work force where we spend a lot of time on computers. We buy more than half of all electronic devices and more than half of all computer games (and no they are not all for our spouses/children).
Wake up boys. This is no more news than females voting and driving!
That said, I've noticed the net is slowing down at home and at work. Do we have the infrastructure for all of America to be online (and with blazing connections)?
Can I bum a sig?
"internet access is highest among females 35-54" So thats why there are 3 girls registered on the OSDN Personals instead of the one that had her pic put in the banner. That would account for the huge jump =)
Stranded.org
No, Internet access is actually highest among middle aged men who call themselves "Debra".
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
Why am I still getting these freakin AOL disks?
Since I'm from Romania here we see this like:
... you do the math.
... the best
go to US plug your cable in the wall and the broadbad flows.
Now this is something I envy you for. Low rate decent speed access. Since here a 64/128 kbit goes around $100-$150 and the minimum wage is around $75 monthly
But at least we cand get some online clients from US. The more
How can we not be "connected"? Its become narly manditory (if not already so) for secondary schools to teach internet skills. It's only a natural thing to have the students ask their parents for an internet connection: "We need to do our projects" is often the case. Granted, teens do use it for many other things, but that's not the point. How many state websites have money saving online forms for Car Registration, etc? If you do it via hardcopy, you often have to pay X number of dollars to process it. But it's less online more than not. Want more information about a product or service? Check out the company's website! Want to play the latest game or get a new pc part? You better have the internet, since the company may not have bothered to send the correct drivers with the product, check their online driver download section! You might be lucky if they have an option for you to buy the update CD and pay for shipping for a 6-8 week later delivery. It's becoming more and more difficult to use the "I don't have internet" excuse. It's not a merely sending email and for up and coming companies to use the web. It's invaded our everyday lives. For better or worse, we need to conform or perish.
"Interestingly, among age/gender groups, internet access is highest among females 35-54."
And you thought mom was busy balancing the checkbook online....
Now all you teenagers now get to face the fact that 'HotChick69' you've been eagerly getting busy with in the chat rooms may in fact be just down the hall.
The horror... the horror...
#1) This is a press release. It is in the interest of the Nielsen group to exaggerate these figures. The more people who they show as on the internet, the more advertisers who will buy their data.
#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.
#3) It's very vague what question they actually asked people. Does it include "is there a library within 50 miles of you that has internet access?" Given their natural bias towards inflating the numbers, you can't discount them incorporating those results into their totals.
It's great if more people are online, but these figures and percentages need to be taken with a grain of salt.
What about driving? I put about 15,000 miles per year on my car, but I have no idea how an automatic transmission works. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
Because of this, I try not to get too riled up when I talk to people who get pop-ups and viruses, or don't know their CPU/System specs, or want to buy a P4 3.2GHz to play games with, but still use the onboard video. I wouldn't want my mechanic to constantly belittle me because I don't know how to adjust my own timing belt or the optimum gap on my spark plugs.
We can't all be experts at *everything.* There's just too much technology we interact with on a daily basis. That's why it *is* the manufacturer's responsibility to produce "easy to use" systems. Otherwise, we'd all be sitting around 24-hours a day, reading the owner's manuals to our new DVD player's remote.
And yet, half the "geeks" out there can't tell me how CMOS works.
They can write Perl and PHP, but ask them what a transistor is and their faces go blank.
Then you ask the EE who designs low-level CMOS VLSI designs how the electrons move inside the transistors, and he probably gives a decent explanation, but if you ask him why, blank look.
So you go talk to the physicist. Who can probably explain why the electrons move around the way they do.
But I bet he can't write perl scripts.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)