A third of adults without Internet don't want it
WASHINGTON -- About one in four American adults don't use the Internet. And many of them couldn't care less about getting online.
A report last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that although price is a barrier for dial-up users in switching to broadband, one-third of those without a Net connection simply aren't interested in e-mailing or exploring the Web.
The findings come amid the settling-in of an Internet-focused White House, one that pushed an $819 billion economic stimulus package that contains billions for broadband expansion. (It passed last week in the House.) Still, the new Pew numbers suggest that a noteworthy digital divide lingers in the USA.
"There certainly are those people who have no interest in getting connected to the Internet," says Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, which runs the Internet for Everyone initiative in Washington. "That does not mean that they won't one day."
About 35% of dial-up customers — whose connection speeds are typically a fraction of broadband users' — said cost was a problem. About one in five dial-up customers said nothing could get them to upgrade.
John Horrigan, the report's author, says low-income and older Americans account for most of the non-users, whose median age is 61. He says that even if they find no need for logging on today, they might in the future — particularly if, say, a doctor wanted to share medical records.
Eventually, Horrigan says, the digital divisions will make it "more costly to be excluded."
Pew says the surveys, conducted in May 2008 and December 2007, also show that pockets of the population that don't use the Internet would need more than just a connection — they would also need training and hands-on support.
"In moments of technological change, whether it be electricity or television, a certain segment of the population seems to hold out and say, 'I'm just fine with my outhouse' or 'Who needs a phone line?' " Scott says. "That doesn't mean that those people are misinformed or misguided. It's just the natural progression of technology adoption."
