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posted by chromas on Wednesday July 25 2018, @01:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-matter-of-choice dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

For most of us, it’s hard to imagine life without the internet.

For better or worse, we’ve become hyper-dependent on the digital universe housed in our screens. We use it on a daily basis to communicate with friends, book flights, shop, skim the news, watch movies and television shows, and stay up-to-date on Kim Kardashian’s derrière.

As access to the internet has improved in the past two decades, the offline population has steeply declined: today, only 11% of Americans don’t use the internet, down from 48% in 2000.

[...] The stories here represent only a small sample of Americans who don’t use the internet, and the reasons why.

Data tells us that the majority of non-users are elderly, but this shouldn’t endorse the trope that old people are technologically challenged. There is certainly no dearth of octogenarian techies, like my grandfather, who was the first in line to buy a PalmPilot in 1997 and has been at least 3 steps ahead of me on the gadget front ever since.

In fact, 51% of of 65+ citizens have broadband internet at home, and 34% are active on social media. In case you need an uplifting anecdotal addition to this, two of the world’s oldest men — Walter Breuning (114), and Alexander Imich (111) — were reportedly frequent and adept internet users until they died.

And though some of the rationales the folks we interviewed seem a bit like stubborn rants, they do have merit: the internet has negatively effects on face-to-face communication, creativity, attention span, social anxiety, and depression — and in light of recent scandals like Cambridge Analytica, data and privacy concerns are certainly valid.

Source: https://thehustle.co/meet-the-11-of-americans-who-dont-use-the-internet/


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Hartree on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:57AM (2 children)

    by Hartree (195) on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:57AM (#712158)

    I've been using networked computing since the late 70s (Plato and BBS) and on the internet since the mid 80s. I have to use it for work, and it's massively more effective for conducting business/commerce than envelope and stamps/brick and mortar stores alone.

    That said, when I bought a second home out in the country (fixing it up to move there at some point), I made the rule, no net connectivity. I'll still have a simple Tracphone flip phone, but other than that, no cable, no hard line phone, etc.

    I'll still have the net for work and I can go somewhere with connectivity if I really need it, but as time has gone on, I've come to view the net as a massive time sink that really doesn't give me nearly the pleasure that it used to. And yet, I freely admit that I'm a net addict. If I don't reign myself in, I'll keep going through endless links on Wikipedia, imdb, youtube, etc, etc. And yes, there's some wonderful stuff on the net, but as Theodore Sturgeon pointed out, 90% of everything is crud. And being available 24/7 is much more a pain in the butt than it is a help.

    I have dead tree books, my workshop and face to face visits with friends that are in many ways more rewarding. (And yet, here I am posting on Soylent, while I'm bitching about it. Yay for hypocrisy. :) )

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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @12:53PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @12:53PM (#712294)

    you have money for a second home.
    if I had that kind of money, I wouldn't need the internet at home either.

    • (Score: 2) by Hartree on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:01PM

      by Hartree (195) on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:01PM (#712478)

      Yes, I do have a second home (Sorta. The house is not habitable at the moment.), but it's due to a lot of sweat equity and living in a low cost of living rural area. I make about 45K a year (that's a matter of public record since I'm a state employee) and I'm single, so yes, I'm a lot better off than many and I have no complaints. But that's hardly putting me into the wealthy category by US standards.
      The current plan is to inexpensively fix up the original house (by doing most of the work myself over years) and sell it to get some more savings for retirement. The state I live in, Illinois, has the worst funded public pension in the nation and it either goes broke, or the benefits will be massively cut before I can retire (I may still be having to work when I'm 80.)