15 percent of Americans are not online

The Pew Research Center recently released a report showing that 15 percent of Americans do not use the Internet despite different programs that promote Internet use. In comparison one-in-five black Americans and 18 per cent of Hispanics are not online.

Still, the PRC notes that the 15 percent figure is significantly lower than in the year 2000 when it started researching technology’s effect on society.

It might seem inconceivable that in 2015 there could still be Americans who don’t use the Internet – but they are out there. The percentage of offline Americans has been unchanged during the past two years, suggesting that getting the non-Internet population online could be very challenging. A third of adults with less than a high school education do not use the internet, but that share falls as the level of educational attainment increases. Cost was also a barrier- 19% cited the expense of internet service or owning a computer.

Class-related gaps persist. Those living in households with an annual income under $30,000 a year are less likely to report internet usage. Since 2000, Pew has conducted 98 surveys on the topic.

While an equal proportion of men and women do not use the Internet, the research found that there are differences between races. And Americans in households earning less than $30,000 a year are about eight times more likely than the most affluent adults to say they don’t go online.

There is a small minority of Americans-about 15%-who still aren’t online. For others (32%) non-Internet use was based on it being too hard to use, of which 8% said they were too old to learn.

The vast majority of Americans however are online. Rural Americans are the least likely to have broadband, and if you can remember what a pain in the butt dial-up internet connections were, you can understand why some country folk simply don’t care. About 39 percent do not use the internet, compared with 3 percent of 18-29-year-olds. For example, 86% of adults 65 and older did not go online in 2000; today that figure has been cut in half. For many Americans, the Web has become an integral part of any standard means of communication.