Slashdot Mirror
Many Americans Still Don't Have Home Net Access
Weather Storm wrote in with a story about those who see no need for home net access. Surprisingly, it's not the cost that is a barrier to entry. Instead, most say they don't see the value of having a net connection at home. "A little under one-third of U.S. households have no Internet access and do not plan to get it, with most of the holdouts seeing little use for it in their lives, according to a new survey. Park Associates, a Dallas-based technology market research firm, said 29 percent of U.S. households, or 31 million homes, do not have Internet access and do not intend to subscribe to an Internet service over the next 12 months."
People using their neighbor's "free" wifi?
...that the majority of these people do not have children in middle or high school, or if they do, that they rely heavily upon libraries or school systems for work.
Whether we want to admit it or not, there are people who just don't care about the internet and what is on it. Most people here do care - in most cases we are heavily involved with it daily so it just seems foreign to us that "they just don't get it!"
I don't see this as a bad thing, just different.
I am Ergo the magnificent. Short in power, tall in stature, narrow of vision and wide of purpose.
Did it ever occur to you that this is no one thing everyone wants or likes? Does everyone watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, have a (cell)phone? No. Each person has there own preference to how they get information and communicate with others and the world.
Now, whether or not this survey is accurate, as some have already and vibrantly pointed out, is another issue.
It was also reported that about 23% of mature Americans cannot read a schedule! Further still, from one study, America's adults made no progress in their ability to read a newspaper, a book or any other prose arranged in sentences and paragraphs!
This is amazing because this nation has had "free" education for a long time - education that would have prevented these appalling figures.
With figures like these, why should anyone expect a different outcome when it comes to internet access? Populations like these cannot generate effective demand for services similar to those found on the internet.
You're posting on a Saturday, sir.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Yeah, that's it... it must be those Christians, thumping their bibles all the time. Who has time for those computers. Wonder who is going to all of those bible thumping websites that are all over the internet though. Of course then there are those wacky green types that are fearful that people wasting their time, consuming energy, sitting in front of their computers might be contributing to global warming.
They had internet access. First dial up, then a DLS line.
After a year or so, my siblings were the only ones using it, usually to download spyware and such while hitting myspace.
After walking my dad through reinstalling XP home on the computer to get rid of all of the crap, he gave up. The computer now sits in the corner of their home and is rarely used.
When they need internet access, they go to the library. It is not a major part of their life.
If I lived a bit closer, I would probably be able to put linux or lock down XP and make it a bit more secure on their system and set it up for them to use. Even then, the monthly cost of the dsl line was not worth it to them given the amount of use they would get out of it.
All of that said, I do see a market for something like a SunRay @ home for users like my parents. Small terminal that actually runs everything remotely. With higher speed internet connections (A sunray only needs about 1Mbps for very acceptable performance with a 1280x1024) and almost no power draw, it is perfect for things like this (yes, you can setup a similar setup with a linux terminal, but the sunray is actually simpler. I've done both in my life)
While such a setup would not be workable for most slashdoters, it would work fine for the rest of the world who dont care to become computer mechanics just to browse the web (think tivo users vs mythTV users)
Rock on with your priviledged self. You're kidding, right? The US really doesn't have much of a poverty problem. The number of truly poor people is actually quite low. What the US Government chooses to call poverty, in many third world countries would be considered the lap of luxury. Of course, their inflation of the numbers makes it that much harder to help the folks who really need it, as they're lost amidst a sea of "poor" people who can't afford to pay college tuition for their kids. Not being able to afford food or adequate housing, that's poverty. Not being able to afford an internet connection? Give me a fucking break. That's a fucking luxury.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
In the US, many jobs require using a computer every day for 8 hours while at the office. In the opinion of many that I know and have worked with, they don't see why they would want to sit in front of a computer for a few more hours when they get off work. This isn't a US vs rest of the world thing, it's apathy! Why sit in front of the computer typing away every night when you do it all day at work? That's what it comes down to for most of the baby boomer generation. For younger generations, it is probably borrowing their neighbor's wifi connection. For the 22% who said that they can't afford a computer, they didn't ask them if they could afford smoking either. So it's my opinion that the survey is somewhat incomplete and skews results in a certain way to make it look like much of the US is a backwards society when that's really not case. Some people just don't care about technology. Having other priorities and interests is not a bad thing.
Personally, I'd have a hard time adjusting to not having broadband, but I could probably survive. Slashdot withdrawal is not generally considered to be fatal.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
I don't have access at home, and I don't really care. When I need access on a weekend, I'm usually at a coffee shop ( like now ) anyway, and at least where I am -- DC -- there's quite a few free WAPs.
I used to have DSL at my old apartment, and I spent too much time online. Frankly, I'd rather be writing code, or reading a book. I get "enough" internet access at work. If I know I'm going to need some offline documentation, I download it when I have access and keep it around.
What it comes down to is this: When my girlfriend and I moved in together, we discussed whether internet & cable tv were worth the expense, and we decided it wasn't. It's a lot of money to -- essentially -- veg out. We'd rather spend time together, or read, or go exercise, or do something worthwhile.
Now, that being said it's saturday and I'm on slashdot from a free WAP dowtown. So, I guess it's hard to take me seriously.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
That's not funny! Global warming killed my father...and raped my mother!
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
28 million Americans live below the poverty level. That means they cannot meet their basic needs; food, clothing, shelter. THAT IS POVERTY. No, its not as bad as many places in the world, but IT IS BAD.
Sorry, try reading the article.
Those "dont want the internet" folks in the survey said "money was not the issue". So poverty is OUT as a cause.
Secondly, the definition of "Poverty" you use is ridiculously malleable and political, thats why you have 28 million or more there. They define it as the bottom 10% more or less, so you will ALWAYS have millions "below the poverty line". But you apparentlyare ignorant about how they calculate it: "Poverty Line" calculations that you refer to do not count the significant charitable help most poor have (Habitat for Humanity, community shelters and halfway houses, food banks, soup kitchens, etc), as well as governmental programs like WIC, food stamps, Welfare, subsidised housing, Medicare/Medicaid, free school lunches, government food assistance, Social Security Disability, etc. That is why you have statistics like: you can be "Poor" according to the income based poverty line, and still have a phone, cell phone, car, 2 tvs, air conditioning, etc. And those items are quite common amongst the "poor".
You want to see *real* poverty go visit Mozambique (been there with the Red Cross - the suffering there is horrid), or some ghettos in central America (for example Nicaragua). Potable water, shelter and food are the issues there, not whether or not to trade the Government Cheese for cigarettes, or sell the food stamps to buy a Nintendo.
Get your head out of your ass - and get your ass out of the US political blinders and learn a bit about the world. Even better - go do something about it instead of preaching on slashdot. I have.
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The primary reason to fight poverty in a developed nation is not the discomfort of the people involved. Yes, they are poor. Yes, they are exploited and work 39.5 hours a week (or 79 hours, more often) merely to pay off their credit card bills. Yes, they stuff their faces with low-quality agricultural byproducts packaged up as convenience food and gain weight every year. It's uncomfortable, but as you say, every country has some uncomfortable people. Our poor are better off than Somalia's.
Unfortunately, our poor do not visit the doctor. That's dangerous. It's dangerous for them, but it's almost as dangerous for you and me. If you contracted TB or smallpox, you'd be at the doctor within the first day and a half. You'd have a competent doctor who'd listen to you or your family clearly describing your symptoms. He'd make the proper diagnosis, fill in the appropriate form to notify the CDC, and qurantine you.
If a poor person contracts a serious and uncommon disease, going to the doctor immediately isn't an option. He has to wait until the fever is serious enough that an emergency department will see him without his insurance. Even so, many of the better ERs will turn him away (or so he thinks) so he goes to the one with the best record of charity. His harried, exhausted doctor may think the disease is just the flu, like the dozen other cases of intense flu he's seen that day. Toss 'em out the door, tell 'em it'll get better. The poor person heads into work the next day because he's only got two sick days a year. He works at Appleby's bussing tables. Pretty soon you have a minor epidemic.
This is just one example of how having a huge population of people in our country who cannot afford the basic services most of us take for granted is a threat to all of us. Others include uninsured drivers, riots, the whole mess in New Orleans during the evacuation, the drug trade and public schoool violence. If you have a high standard of living, the best way to protect it is to ensure that nobody near you has a standard of living vastly lower than yours. Your ideas of meritocracy and your tax resentments are irrelevant in the face of problems like these.
who are not obese.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
"download music/movies/TV shows" doesn't matter to some people. I, for instance, believe in respecting the rights of content creators. I'm phrasing it that way to avoid the usual arg about whether downloading that sort of thing, in a manner that's contrary to the wishes of the creator, constitutes theft. As a rule, I don't believe in infringing their rights, save where they try to infringe mine--for instance, I'll rip CDs to disk, or make backups of electronic downloads. So long as I don't distribute, that's Fair Use, so far as I'm concerned.
"no ability to download software" is completely wrong. There were several mechanisms, such as FTP.
"no online banking or bill-paying" many of which are completely broken, which leads to much fraud, identity theft, etc. The masses just want stuff, now. Corporations build it, often very poorly, while shifting as much of the financial load (recovering from identity theft, etc.) onto the masses as possible.
"no Wikipedia or Google" I have problems with Wikipedia, in that I've found them wrong too many times, and I've neither the time nor the desire for the Games of Wikifiddlers. Nor do I think Google is some unalloyed Good Thing. Raising either of these points on Slashdot leads to flamage, but the points are still valid.
It's curious that you refer to Google's revenue as "obscene," yet still seem to think that they're a completely Good Thing, as in "Take away the scale up and you lose Google." Without the scale, we wouldn't *need* Google, at least in a search context. Plus, even Google admits that as much as 20% of their index is garbage generated by spamdexers and robots.
I'm *not* saying Wikipedia or Google are evil, useless things. I use both, all the time. But always hearing that they're the greatest things since sliced bread is *so* stale.
This is all moot: the internet is going to do pretty much nothing but grow. Economics and Metcalfe's Law are going to drive it. To me, that's pretty much a no-brainer. But it's become much more of a sewer of spam, malware, automated attacks, astroturfing, consensus reality, privacy invasions, etc. I can see how people who were early users might be a bit nostalgic.
In it's early days, the Internet was an amazing thing. Now, it's *still* an amazing thing. I get a bit nostalgic, too, at times. But it still presents so much scope for interesting work. While I think Sturgeon, like Murphy, was an optimist, there are some total jewels out there, in terms of Web sites, development tools, security tools, pretty much name your own category, in fact. I pretty much regard Wikipedia and Google as jewels in the rough, BTW.
Almost *nothing* in life is a proven, unalloyed good. Not Google, not Wikipedia, not the introduction of the masses to the Internet. On a pessimistic day, I'd strike the 'almost'.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
29 percent of American households consist of "really old people".
I was at a nursing home the other day, getting a tour, and the manager pointed me to a computer with an internet connection. She said that it was "very popular with some of our residents...particularly those over the age of 90."
Over the age of 90? I asked her what she attributed that to:
"It's a trick you see. People who get to be 90 have a natural predisposition to wanting to live longer, and as part of living longer, they want to stay as involved in and be a part of society as much as possible, and the internet is a major part of society today."