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A Quarter of the EU Has Never Used the Web
smitty777 writes "Reuters reports that a quarter of the EU has yet to use the internet. Further, half of those in some of the southern and western states do not even have internet access at home. From the article: 'As well as highlighting geographic disparities across one of the world's most-developed regions, the figures underline the lack of opportunity people in poorer communities have to take part in advances such as the Internet that have delivered lower cost goods and service to millions of people.' The full report created by Eurostat can be found here."
I don't see how that's a problem. In Asia lots of people just go to internet cafe, if they want to access internet. Likewise, they do so for everything. It's a cultural thing. You want to do something? You go to place that offers that service. And they aren't pricey either, it's damn cheap. I kind of like that style too, it makes it social.
The summory sais 'West' but that's supposed to be 'East' - the former communist countries. Poverty and bad infrastructure are known problems there.. Lack of internet probably the least of their problems.
As for southern europe goes - yes, they have more internet cafe's. I assume the climate helps on that culture, same as for coffee etc.
Everyone should have access to the internet. Those at the poorest end of society need it the most because all the best utility deals are online, as is a lot of government information.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
A state is any politically-distinct entity, which can be as small as a single town, or as large as the whole EU. The word is much more versatile than the particular usage in the name "United States of America".
The State of the Union address states the state of the state of states.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Members of the EU are often referred to as Member States. Or Constituent Countries.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
The article (and report) conclude that "24 percent of 16-74 year olds across the 27 countries in the European Union have never accessed the Internet". Meanwhile in the parts of the EU with the highest Internet use (such as in the Scandinavian countries) the rate of Internet access (ie people who actively use the Internet, not people who've used it only once) is in the 90%.
I would assume part of the reason for the statistic is that 16-74 is a pretty big age span. Particularly when it comes to new technology. It wouldn't surprise me if the "never used internet" population is almost entirely in the 50+ age bracket. Unfortunately the article, and report, doesn't give that information.
Not all the world is the USA, and you do not have a monopoly on enforcing the meaning of words.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
As a Spaniard (South and West of EU) I have to say the summary is wrong. The fine article says the South and EAST!
Anyway, Spain is a country with large rural areas, but the broadband is nearly ubiquitous.
He probably meant nation-state. Or sovereign state. We often use 'state' to describe independent countries.
In fact, afaik using 'state' to refer to a sub-national political entity is unusual; most countries have 'provinces' or some other local terminology.
Either way, English is a funny language.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
I did not know we had states in Europe...
Yes. In English the word "state" refers to a sovereign political entity. The "United States of America" referred to each individual state as an individual and sovereign authority over their own land. However, as the USA has become more unitary rather than distinct, the term "state" in a political sense has experienced a form of semantic shift wherein people believe that it means a political subunit of a larger country.
In fact, the USA as a whole is a state, Germany is a state, the UN is a congregation of states. If you want more fun, The Kingdom of the Netherlands is considered to be composed of four "countries": The Netherlands, Aruba, Sint Maarten, and Curaçao. These collections of smaller politically sovereign entities into a larger politically sovereign entity causes a lot of confusion in this regard.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
I'm always amazed when I see the number of articles on Wikipedia in different languages. The German Wikipedia for example has about 1.3 million articles, while the number of German-speaking people is about 100 million. There are *a lot* more people speaking Spanish around the world (Mexico alone has more than 100 million citizens), yet there are only about 850.000 articles in Spanish on Wikipedia.
I think the number of articles says a lot about internet penetration in European countries, because most of them have their own language. The Dutch Wikipedia for example has almost a million articles, while only about 30 million or so people actually speak the language. You see the same sort of ratio between articles to speakers in other nordic and western European countries. This ratio drops sharply as you move towards the east and south of Europe. People seem to be a lot less interested to add content to the internet in those countries. You could argue a poor country has other more important preoccupations, but people in countries such as Spain or Italy aren't all that poor, yet they don't seem to be adding a lot of articles to Wikipedia either.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Just like with all things, time and a compelling reason is needed to adopt new practices. My mother disliked it when computers were introduced in her job and after retirement was not interested in using the home PC for leisure purposes. When the nest became empty, Skype became a necessity. Last time I visited, she was looking at the camera and saying "hmmm, this photo is too dark but I'll adjust the brightness when I get home"...once at home she was complaining the computer was "too damn slow!" to get anything done...
The EU has a wide spread of countries, and development levels. Rural Romania has a different level of wealth and technology infrastructure than urban Finland, for example.
You make a good point about trust as an issue why some people might not take up internet use. My 77 year old father here in the UK does not go shopping online. I think part of this is lack of trust with the novel (to him) environment. Also, he doesn't need to go online. All his local services are within a few kilometres and he likes doing business in person. He is retired, so he can go to the bank and shops during quiet times of the day. Some people don't need the internet, or if they have access to it, choose not to use it.
For some people in Europe it is technical infrastructure. Check out a map of Europe and you will find that there are large areas where there is low speed or little access to the internet - modem speed access or maybe no access to fixed line telephones or mobile coverage. In Scotland, there is better coverage for 3G phones in the seas around the country than on the surface area of the land (internet is usually ok up to 2Mbs via land line in this country).
For quite a number of people in Europe, they cannot afford the cost of an internet connection. Check out prices in some of the lower developed European countries compared to state pension levels for example. For the young, employed, urban Europeans in highly developed countries internet costs are low compared to income, but for many others this is not the case.
It doesn't say half the population. It clearly states half of "some southern and western states".
Lack comprehension much?
somewhat like herding kittens
With a large enough laser pointer, this isn't as hard to achieve as it sounds.
On paper the the U.S. and E.U. have very similar structures.
After the civil war in the U.S. the "in practice" changed to make us one nation instead of an alliance, but on paper we are still different countries. (Yes, that would mean two unrelated countries name Georgia). Pre-Civil war the term "These United States" was used instead of "The United States" for exactly that reason. Had Rick Perry actually moved on his idle threat to succeed it would have gotten some more people looking at the real structure of things and debating the "legality" of the situation, especially since Texas did join a little differently than the rest of the states, and yes it's relevant once the debates start.
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"State" is another word for nation or country. These were called states before the EU existed.
some hillbilly christian types that have no internet, no cable TV, no landline telephone, they live way out of town, they believe the US Government is the "Beast" of Revelation (chapter 13) and the end of the world is going to happen before the end of this decade
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I think you mean secede, not "succeed"
Federation has been the path of Europe since May 9, 1950, and it is not just a few politicians, also a sizable proportion of the citizens want this as well. It was around 20% in Sweden last time they made a large scale poll on the topic (larger among young people, so mortality will take care of the numbers in the long run), and Sweden is a rather Eurosceptic place.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
In Sweden, people would vote no about joining the Euro if there was an election TODAY. This is what the polls asked; I would probably not want Sweden to join TODAY (and I am a very convinced federalist), but whenever the bugs in the system have been fixed, then yes; Sweden should join.
Polling is a very interesting thing, since you can produce different answers on the same topic by just formulating the question a bit different.
Last time I saw any numbers about popular support for a USE-like future, this was around 20% of the Swedish population (and this is not just a few "insane politicians", but rather close to 2 million citizens). I doubt that this have changed that much, though even among these very few would say they supported a conversion to the Euro in the current climate of uncertainty.
Regarding having multiple plebiscites over and over again, Sweden have done just that about the Euro. When the plebiscite about joining the EU was carried out, joining the Euro was included in the deal; despite this the government announced a second referendum, despite that the populous had already approved joining the Euro (legally, Sweden has agreed to join but stays out using a loophole). So, yes, repeating plebiscites happens, but in this case, it was in the opposite way of what you are complaining about.
Secondly, about repeating plebiscites, this is not that strange. For example, if you run something through normal parliamentary procedures; different groups / parties may want to make amendments, and they often do this. This is obviously unpractical during a plebiscite, so if the population rejects a proposal of a complicated legal text, would it not be prudent to make amendments in this case? This is exactly the reason that parliamentary democracy is so much more superior to direct democracy in every kind of way.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
As hard as it would be to imagine in the United States, there are still places on earth where people actually know each other and interact with each other in person. If some farming village in the middle of nowhere doesn't have internet access, then I wouldn't wish it upon them. For the most part the internet is a scourge. I would be more interested to know how people without the internet in their lives survive. In america you can't even get a job without going online, which is ridiculous. Poor people are not helped by technology. Rich people force poor people to use technology as a way of generating revenue from otherwise lost causes.
if your life is such a big joke then why should I care?
Actually.. and i experienced this myself, if you are as a tourist in a area where everyone has internet in their home, it might be very hard to go on the internet.
There are no internet cafe's since there is no business model for it. Everyone has it at home.
There might be free wifi, but that requires a laptop. As a tourist i Do not carry a laptop.
Roaming via 3g is VERY expensive, and i only recent have a phone capable of wifi. That is not mainstream yet.
The effect is that the gap between have and havenot internet people only becomes greater. You can expierence it yourself as a tourist, but for some people this migh be the reality every day. If you have problems getting your daily needs (food, shelter), a computer for internet and a isp connection might be too expensive for you.
In that case Ireland wasn't a true country for 800 of the last 900 years and yet we have one of the most unique and vibrant cultures in the world and we are not losing that anytime soon. Your rationale of a "true country" is wrong. Yyou are confusing economics and power with culture and patriotism. Most EU citizens still have huge national pride but they can understand the power of a single economic bloc.
The US economic federation is not logically separated from patriotic ideology in the same way. Citizens of different US states have ideologies that they believe to be more valid than their compatriots and more worthy of being described as the American way. Europeans have a sense of Europeanness but they identify more strongly with their country/unit.
300 or so million people is just too large a population to share a culture with and homogenizing statistics that are geographical in nature is meaningless.
There still are ample media available for you to live an informed life without using the Internet.
People with internet have invariably canceled their newspaper subscriptions. Once you drop the local newspaper, you've lost local news. The internet seriously does not provide the same sort of information availability for local coverage.
So we now have large demographics that have no clue whats going on locally. I travel through the neighboring town and occasionally I see lawn-signs up saying "vote no!" You think my friends who live in that town have a clue what thats about? No, they don't. Not even a hint of an idea about it, which is probably why they dont bother to vote.
I set up Google News to give me stories that mention my town, and that turns out to be nearly worthless. You simply wont find anything about that application for a liquor license, about the proposed repaving of west main street, about rezoning hill street and parker avenue, or about the shelter needing funds and volunteers desperately. Thats just whats going on this week.
A generation worried about everywhere else.... out of sight, so out of mind. Whats going on in Far Away Place is now more important than whats going on in their own communities. They think the federal government is the solution to every problem because thats all they fucking know about.. they can go on worrying about crap on the other side of the planet that doesnt even affect them and that they also have no power to effect and when things turn sour locally they wonder why nobody (ie, the federal government) did anything about it.
"His name was James Damore."
You should go drink some coffe.
50% of the population has access to the Internet at home. All of those accessed the Internet at least once, they are not on the headline.
50% of the population doesn't have access to the Internet at home. Half of those (25% of the total) have already accessed the net by other means. The other half (the remaining 25% of the total) have never accessed the net.
Rethinking email
should not eve bother to give up :)
Eurostat is full of garbage: they mix data that was collected according to different rules, does not make sense to debate anything they publish.
Most of their data is crap. For example, a few years ago Eurostat put the percentage of internet users in Iceland at 97%, which would have included some 4000 toddlers. The data sent by Iceland to Eurostat probably meant that 97% of the population live in an area with internet access, which does make sense. Another examples: urban/rural are defined differently in each country but reported as being the same (most UK towns under 10k would be counted as villages in Rumania, for example), broadband is reported differently, infant mortality is reported by each country differently (for example, US and a few of EU countries report a live birth if the child has a pulse _or_ moves independently, while most of the EU reports preemies under a certain weight or height or age as "lost pregnancy", no matter how long do the children live after birth so those children don't get into the "infant mortality" numbers) etc. etc. etc.
"Most EU citizens still have huge national pride but they can understand the power of a single economic bloc."
Perhaps while all EU was about was easing trade across national borders. But now that one member is basically dictating to others how they should run their nations, pride may well override reason (if there is much of that left in the EU system, it seems to run on monetarist/neo-classical orthodoxy more then reason right now).
What is interesting is how clearly the Euro troubles are exposing where the bodies are buried. Notice how the British prime minister basically employed the British veto right to protect the city of London from a financial transaction tax. And the whole issue can in part be traced to German use of frozen wages tariffs to keep their exports going, making one wonder if it is indeed a single market.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm