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The number of people in the United States who use the Internet increased steadily from 2000 until 2012, when the percentage of offline adults fell to 15 percent. Since then, despite efforts by the government and social service organizations to encourage Americans to get online, that number hasn't budged, according to Pew.
Why are some Americans so reluctant to sign on? A third of those surveyed who aren't online (34 percent) said they don't think the Internet is relevant to their lives, or that they're simply not interested in what the Web has to offer. Another 32 percent of people who don't use the Internet said the technology required to access the Internet is just too tough to get the hang of, and 8 percent said they were "too old to learn."
But some people said they don't use the Internet because they cannot afford to do so, according to Pew. The survey data showed that 19 percent of those not online cited the expense of Internet service or owning a computer as their reason for staying offline.
Facebook and Google have been in the news recently because they want to get everyone online. What if those people don't want to?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 04 2015, @06:15AM
Complain as much as you like about the Pets.com bubble, and the over-hyping of "Web2.0", the internet has drastically, exponentially changed the rate of exchange of information across the planet. Take it from me, who used to have to hand copy papyrus, and give it to some guy going somewhere on a ship, a boat blown by the wind, and have to wait for months to find out if the message was received. And up to like, 30 years ago? people had to submit stuff to publishers and wait for them the send out printed matter on dead trees to university libraries before anyone could actually read it. Do we not see that the Net has done more for science, knowledge, society, than any other human inventions since the steam-powered printing press? (Gutenberg was just a precursor!). And now, only at the end, do the MBAs realize the folly of their plan. We can select, we can filter, we can and do ad-block, and eliminate java-script. Why? Because, Mal, you can't stop the signal. You can't stop the signal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @07:47AM
Those 15% are most likely not academics. And I'm pretty sure that there are more than 15% of the population who never visited an university library, and we don't consider that a problem, do we?
Yes, the internet is a great thing. But that doesn't mean that everyone must use it. GPS is also a great thing. Is it therefore a problem that I don't own a GPS device?