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The shares of U.S. adults who say they use the internet, use social media, own a smartphone or own a tablet computer are all nearly identical to the shares who said so in 2016. The share who say they have broadband internet service at home currently stands at 65% – nearly identical to the 67% who said this in a survey conducted in summer 2015. And when it comes to desktop or laptop ownership, there has actually been a small dip in the overall numbers over the last two years – from 78% in 2016 to 73% today.
A contributing factor behind this slowing growth is that parts of the population have reached near-saturation levels of adoption of some technologies. Put simply, in some instances there just aren't many non-users left. For example, nine-in-ten or more adults younger than 50 say they go online or own a smartphone. And a similar share of those in higher-income households have laptops or desktops.
The poor, the rural, the elderly, and those who couldn't care less are the hold-outs.
(Score: 3, Informative) by GreatOutdoors on Monday October 01 2018, @11:16PM (1 child)
The rural are forced into their position (lack of internet) by the internet providers. I live in a suburb of Oklahoma City, and an looking for a place further out in the country to move to, but I have to be very careful where I choose as most areas any more than a mile away from the most populated neighborhoods will have little to no access to decent internet. I have friends who live inside Oklahoma City limits which still cannot get anything faster than 1.5m DSL from a land based provider. Their only other option is to go to satellite which is very expensive. The providers also have no interest in expanding or allowing other companies to fill the void, so they contract with the cities to guarantee their monopoly. We are only just now getting some wireless based services, but it is still very limited. I would readily pay a slightly higher fee for good internet access if I had any options.
Yes, I did make a logical argument there. You should post a logical response.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 02 2018, @11:51AM
A former boss of mine switched from satellite to a mobile phone hotspot because it was lower latency, cheaper, and faster. I don't have any details and its very locally dependent on tower locations. It was a significant improvement in quality of life for him and his family.