37M Americans don’t use the Web. Here’s why you should care

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/07/29/37-million-american-adults-dont-use-the-web-heres-why-you-should-care/

by ryanmonroe • 11 years ago

43 61 11 years ago

washingtonpost.com

140am3• 11 years ago

according to the article "break it down by race and class, and suddenly the numbers look very bleak"..

- 15% of US adults (~37m people) don't use the internet = 20% of black Americans = 25% of Americans who make less than $30,000 a year = 25% of adults who live in rural areas = 30% of Americans who've never finished high school

kevin_thibedeau2• 11 years ago

How many of those are retired seniors (pre-boomers) who have no real need to use the internet?

TheGRS2• 11 years ago

The article notes that older americans are among the fastest adopters today.

If you've looked at Facebook recently, you'd see why, its the best way to stay connected with extended family members and see pictures of grandchildren.

venomsnake3• 11 years ago

It is good that retired people don't have the time to learn anything new or the need to connect with people.

onion2k• 11 years ago

The internet is a tool that's the preferred method of communication among a growing number of people. Everyone who doesn't have access to it (by lack of technology, lack of education, etc) will slowly become more and more isolated from the rest of society as long as they can't access it. Even if someone chooses to never actually use the internet it is still important that they can if ever they change their mind.

Plus, a large number of old people say they don't need or want access because they don't know what they can use it for, or they're scared of looking stupid because they're not yet learned the technology required. That isn't the same as actually having no reason to use it. Most (like, 99.9999%) of people do have some reason to use it.

dragonwriter3• 11 years ago

FTFA: And it's not merely a matter of waiting for old fuddy-duddies who don't "get it" to die off: As the data show, older people have been among the quickest to adopt the Internet among the disconnected population.

wainstead• 11 years ago

I think in the not too distant future, if "using the Web" equates to "using Siri or Google Now" then that number will drop dramatically.

rcavezza• 11 years ago

These numbers don't surprise me at all. Poorer, older, and less educated people don't use the internet.

savanaly2• 11 years ago

If they don't want to use the internet, they don't have to, right? The benefits and cost of internet use are concentrated on the individual, so I'm not sure that we should expend a lot of effort to force them to "join" the internet if they don't want it.

bryanlarsen• 11 years ago

That's the big question. How many services are only accessible via the internet? The government does a good job of trying to ensure 100% coverage, but private businesses certainly don't. For instance, can you apply for a job at McDonald's without an email address?

striking4• 11 years ago

Yes, you can. http://i.imgur.com/JpbjPCX.png

Try clicking Crew Position here and then Submitting the autofilled code. You see the above image. https://www.mylocalmcds.com/3534mcdonalds/employment/#hiring...

roymurdock3• 11 years ago

That's like saying, if a kid doesn't want to eat his vegetables or go to school, he shouldn't have to, right?

Many people don't have the opportunity to learn how to use a computer. But having basic computer skills is a prerequisite to most entry-level, non-service jobs, and is becoming an increasingly important part of our social fabric.

I would agree with your statement as it applies to people who know about/how to use the internet, and simply don't care. But not for the portion of the population that can't afford the resources or education.

mhurron2• 11 years ago

That's like saying, if a kid doesn't want to eat his vegetables or go to school, he shouldn't have to, right?

It's nothing like that, unless you belive society should act like, and have the same powers as, your parents.

vlunkr• 11 years ago

That was my thought as I read this as well. Despite the title, the article really never said why I should care that they don't use the Internet.

dragonwriter3• 11 years ago

If they don't want to use the internet, they don't have to, right?

Sure.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about the social factors that result in them choosing not, and the social impacts that that choice has.

The benefits and cost of internet use are concentrated on the individual

There certainly are private costs and benefits; an underlying premise of the article -- which, to be fair, it seems to mostly assume rather than support, despite the fact that the support for that would be the answer to the question posed in the headline -- is that there are also social costs and benefits, and that they are important.

so I'm not sure that we should expend a lot of effort to force them to "join" the internet if they don't want it.

None of the efforts discussed in the article, or its linked articles, is about efforts to force anyone to join the internet. So, while I'm sure most would agree with you, you seem to be beating a strawman.

savanaly2• 11 years ago

You're right that I was off the mark when I talked about forcing them to "join" the internet-- whoops

Grue3• 11 years ago

The article doesn't answer why I, a non-American, should care.

140am3• 11 years ago

You, race does not matter, might care if your target audience is among the mentioned ones and in that case according to their numbers would have 20-25% of your audience you can't reach via or market online.

codingdave• 11 years ago

Or instead of thinking of them as potential audiences for whatever you are selling, you could care about them as people, and care because it is hard enough to lift yourself out of poverty, why make it even harder by living without the resources available online?

striking4• 11 years ago

It's pretty clear that adoption of any technology nowadays follows a logistic curve. That is to say, giving the same amount of money gets less people onboard every time you do so. At some point, it is no longer economically worth paying to introduce more people to the technology (because moneyInvested > moneyEarnable as you get closer to the asymptote).

Clickbait title, 4/10. Article doesn't even tell me directly why I should care besides "poverty and inequality" while a couple of paragraphs before stating "34 percent said they didn't find the Internet relevant to them".

Also, it's worth considering: maybe people just don't want to use the Internet. Plenty of libraries carry access, and plenty more will soon. What else can you do, at that point?

afarrell3• 11 years ago

The name of the curve you are looking for is a "logistic curve"

CardenB• 11 years ago

The logistic curve is asymptotic.

striking4• 11 years ago

I edited my comment to include that, thanks!

hodwik2• 11 years ago

Couldn't they just... not want to use the internet?

I intentionally didn't use the internet for a few years after college. I found it too distracting, and just had too much I wanted to do in the real world to waste my time.

I got a lot more done in my spare time, read real books, and had a lot more friends that I saw much more regularly than I do now.

striking4• 11 years ago

On that note, I think I'm going to go outside. Thanks for the reminder!

matwood• 11 years ago

The internet is a tool like anything else. You can waste time on it or be productive. To assume the 'real' world is not a time waster and the internet is, is a false dichotomy. People wasted plenty of time before the internet.

I'm also not sure what's the point of reading 'real' books. The internet and technology in general has allowed me to read more books than I ever thought I would. From book discovery to reading convenience, the internet has made books more accessible to more people than than any other invention since the library.

homakov2• 11 years ago

And why should I care?

norea-armozel3• 11 years ago

Marginal productivity of the nation depends on all sectors having the essentially same infrastructure. Rural and poorer parts of the nation are in such a mess that these people are dissuaded from using the Internet to find jobs or government services.

homakov2• 11 years ago

Great, that's what I wanted to see in the article.

lostcolony• 11 years ago

...I'm confused by this article.

'Many more, 34 percent, said they didn't find the Internet relevant to them (...). Thirty-two percent said the Web was too difficult to use, according to Pew.'

'By contrast, there are real structural challenges (poverty and inequality) that are keeping younger, less socially mobile populations from becoming America's next great inventors or scientists or civil servants'

So 2/3rds of the responses say the problem is either that the web isn't relevant to them, or that it's too hard to use, but it's -poverty and inequality- that are the problem?

Then elsewhere, "Mostly they're poorer, older and undereducated, according to the Pew Research Center's latest figures." but then the article says "And it's not merely a matter of waiting for old fuddy-duddies who don't "get it" to die off: As the data show, older people have been among the quickest to adopt the Internet among the disconnected population." Doesn't that latter bit seem to imply that the 'older' part of the former will be solved with time? Or that the 'older' part isn't a problem at all? And what about that "younger, less socially mobile populations" bit they referenced (prior paragraph)?

I am trying to make sense of both 'why (I) should care' (is it that these people are wrong, and that the internet really -is- relevant to them, and/or that they just need better training on how to use it? The article also says 'But these remaining holdouts are likely to be the hardest to reach, because you can't just throw money at them', but the way to solve both those issues, and the remaining adjectives the Pew Research Center quote references ('poorer' and 'undereducated') is by education and addressing poverty, which requires throwing money at the problem), -and- what to do about it, and I'm not really finding it in the article.

Note, I'm -not- saying that this isn't a problem, or that I can't come up with reasons why it would be. I'm just saying that the article seems to be saying "37M Americans aren't online. That's a problem", and nothing more. Not why that's a problem, not who it affects and why(well, they cite survey responses, then seem to posit their own reasons that run counter to the survey), not how it affects society at large (or me individually, beyond the possibility that some of these people would become great if only they used the internet, something that they just take for granted), and not what to do about it.

wskinner• 11 years ago

"Of the next six adults you meet, chances are one of them has never sent an e-mail."

This is a misleading way to restate the title of the article. It's misleading because this statement is not actually equivalent to "1/6 of Americans don't use the web" and actually obfuscates what might be an interesting topic - how internet usage is distributed geographically. I suspect that given a person has read this article on WaPo's website, nearly everyone that person ever meets is likely to be a user of the Internet.

Perhaps the author could have explored the dichotomy between places where Internet usage is essentially a daily necessity, and where it is functionally irrelevant. But I guess that might not fit the standard narrative for this sort of piece.

--edited to fix typos

ghaff2• 11 years ago

The article is sort of all over the place.

The lede, as you say, is simply untrue. I'm pretty confident that the next 6 adults I meet have all sent an email.

Then there's the matter of providing Internet access to those who can't afford it.

And then there's the matter of those who simply don't see the Internet as relevant to their lives. Is this a problem or not? I dunno but the solution (if, indeed, one is needed) is going to be different from the prior case.

will_brown• 11 years ago

Seeing as the title begins with "37M" (~1/10 Americans) I don't think the author was using 1 in 6 adults as a way to mislead anyone so much as highlight a certain demographic where the statistic is almost double that of the general population.

true_religion• 11 years ago

This distribution isn't uniform. If everyone over 80 hasn't used the internet, that isn't too surprising. That's over 6 million people already,

afarrell3• 11 years ago

According to the Texas bar association, for a huge number of poor people (at least, the ones that come to them to try to get free services to help with mediation and guardianship of relatives), their only device to access the Internet is a smartphone.

amyjess• 11 years ago

Most likely, that refers to the homeless.

It makes sense: homeless people have no residence, so nowhere to keep a PC, but a budget smartphone and a low-end data plan isn't terribly expensive, and it's a useful investment, because having any kind of Internet connection at all is instrumental to getting a job and thus staying afloat and possibly making enough to get out of homelessness.

dragonwriter3• 11 years ago

Most likely, that refers to the homeless.

Most likely, it refers to exactly what it says: poor people presenting for certain services; younger, minority, and low-income Americans are more likely than the population at large to be "smartphone-dependent", that is, have a smartphone as their sole source of internet access. [0] While it is (by far) not a majority in any of those groups, its a significant number.

[0] see, e.g., http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/01/6-facts-abou...

afarrell3• 11 years ago

I didn't get a sense that they were referring to the homeless. I would naively assume that a homeless dude is unlikely to be applying for legal guardianship of his grandmother with dementia

rm_-rf_slash3• 11 years ago

One of the strangest part about working at Cornell University - one of the country's best CS schools - is that a lot of people don't use the Internet at all, particularly facilities staff. Their phones just text and call. They live out in the boonies without any internet connection.

And you know what they're missing? The opportunity to pull out their phone and pretend to be a part of the conversation. These people actually talk to you, and they listen, too.

Instead of seeing a problem where people don't use the Internet, we should be looking at what ubiquitous Internet connections are taking away from us.

w8rbt• 11 years ago

Yes, it's been my experience that those people share closer personal bonds and have a greater sense of community too.

norea-armozel3• 11 years ago

I think that's the other side of the issue, but I think what the author is trying to get at is the fact there's an entire underclass of poor, uneducated individuals that are unable to use the Internet for the most basic tasks (govt services comes to mind). It's not a rosy picture when you think about the elderly among that population where the majority of services in the rural areas are very poor (I've had some experience with this while living in Norton, Kansas for a year). Having access to the Internet could make it easier to get the services they need.

In a larger context I see this as a problem of laying out infrastructure in general. Namely, the lion's share of the infrastructure dollars are put into the most economically wealthy areas. That's okay up to a point that the other parts of the country (rural) are also citizens of the nation and their part of the infrastructure (Internet included) is something out of the 1950s or worse. It's not so much about building an equivalent infrastructure (overbuilt and expensive) for the rural parts of America, but creating infrastructure that is compatible and scalable to the needs of those regions. In my opinion, leaving them with dial up or satellite Internet isn't an option.

rm_-rf_slash3• 11 years ago

To clarify, I do think that people should have access to the Internet if they want it, but there is a tendency on places like Hacker News to assume that once everyone is connected, we will solve societal problems (as opposed to individual ones, like elder citizens that need help), and it's entirely possible that it could introduce even more concerns. For example, studies have shown that the average viewer of Fox News is less truthfully informed than people who don't consume any news. Enabling information access also allows the propagation of knowingly wrong information, regardless of the source or intention.

If people want Internet access, they should have it, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into believing it will solve our greater problems, or that society will crumble without providing access to these last miles.

TheGRS2• 11 years ago

Ok, I don't think the article was at all addressing this angle. It was trying to address how in certain demographics there is a real problem with people who do not want to interact with the web, as in they do not want to participate with the rest of society in that way because they feel it is not relevant to them, not because they are affluent and simply don't have a need to use it.

I've heard the old adage of "we all need to use our phones less, that's the real problem with society, nobody talks to each other anymore", but it always seems like people are viewing the past with rose-tinted glasses when they say this. Just take a look at this meme: https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*U36hBj8i-C7J...

I have real, spontaneous conversations all the time. The phone can be a distraction, but so was my paperback copy of the Lord of the Rings when I was a kid. So was my school newspaper with a sudoku puzzle and a crossword that I would do instead of listening to a boring lecture in college. Sure, some people have a problem with the phone, but I don't think the phone is necessarily at fault for people distracting themselves.

angersock• 11 years ago

The classic post on the matter:

http://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/filestorage/s1tuNpZALtb...

pcurve• 11 years ago

I went back to Cornell for first time in almost 15 years when school was closed for the summer.

You know what was strange, yet so refreshing? All the building doors were open for anybody to walk in, even at 10 pm at night.

It's a shame that I was too young to appreciate the school.

MrFoof2• 11 years ago

But these remaining holdouts are likely to be the hardest to reach, because you can't just throw money at them. Of non-Internet users surveyed in 2013, just 19 percent cited the cost of Internet or owning a computer as an obstacle to adoption. Many more, 34 percent, said they didn't find the Internet relevant to them (though with seemingly 99.9 percent of the Web devoted to cat GIFs, perhaps they have a point). Thirty-two percent said the Web was too difficult to use, according to Pew.

I wonder how many fell into the bucket of "found a computer (not the web) too difficult to use." I'm quite serious.

My father, despite building TVs from Heathkits, is a high school dropout. My mother did graduate high school but is a bit of a luddite. For decades I would describe their personal computing experience as "clunky". My father understood the hardware (hell, HE was the one who upgraded our 486), but my mother is of the mindset that a computer is a complicated thing you're liable to "screw up" or "break".

She's now 60, he's 66. Previously their computer use was minimal, aside from my dad meticulously maintaining his media library, which mom chides him for ("he's going to break something"). Yet, I give her an iPad, and everything changes. She has no beef with it. She's not afraid of it. She uses it probably 4 to 6 hours a day, every day, managing what she cares about within a few select apps. Well, it was a few select apps. Last I looked at her iPad she has nearly 80. She also now has a Kindle, a FitBit, and an AppleTV.

Moreover, they live in an elderly community. Average age is mid 70s. Folks with landlines, and a surprising number that have never owned a computer. Ever. It was really odd to find out my mother was convincing people to get iPads, and she'd have my father go do a simple installation of an Apple Airport Extreme (since it can be managed via iOS), and giving folks a crash course.

You now have octogenarians, who never previously used a computer for the previous 80 years of their life, playing games with each other online, sending emails and IMs, looking for funny cat GIFs, streaming movies and TV shows on Netflix, filling their Instagram accounts with new photos, managing recipes, tracking their health/nutrition, connecting with grandkids on Facebook, browsing the web and shopping online, and so on and so forth. I think my folks have brought nearly twenty people into the 21st century in just three years, with my mother of all people leading the charge to get them on board.

Some have gone further. Some now have Kindles so they can read on the bus or at the doctor's office. Some have set-top boxes which they use to stream with. Though a computer? Zero. For the older generation, tablets don't seem to have the stigma a full-fledged personal computer does, and with only a little nudging and demonstration of how simple things can be, they're damn willing to see what they've been missing.

ghaff2• 11 years ago

I wonder how many fell into the bucket of "found a computer (not the web) too difficult to use." I'm quite serious.

Absolutely. For years, I've been tech support for my dad. I think it's safe to say that he just never "got" PCs. Icons would move and it would cause confusion. I don't think he ever really grokked the concept of filesystems. In short, he was never really able to understand using a PC at a level where, if something happened that cause things to go off script, he could get what was happening and adapt. And he was genuinely uninterested in going deeper.

I won't say he's embraced the iPad I gave him to the same degree as your mother. I still need to pretty much set things up for him. But he's very comfortable reading the news, playing solitaire, and ordering from Amazon in a way that he never was with a PC.

(A Chromebook might have worked too but he can't really type very well and I suspect the fact that the iPad doesn't look like a PC is probably an element in his being more comfortable with it.)

theandrewbailey• 11 years ago

My mom was a bit like yours (afraid of destroying it). After I convinced her that there's no self-destruct button on PCs, she doesn't think like that. I don't think my dad had that fear, but despite using computers for over 20 years, he still hesitates every so often to decide whether to right click or left. I have them on Linux anymore.

MrFoof2• 11 years ago

After I convinced her that there's no self-destruct button on PCs

I attempted that. For nearly two decades, to no avail. Regardless of whether it was Windows or Mac OS X.

I had brought over an iPad 2 to show them. They had iPod touches (an upgrade after I gave them Nanos many years earlier) and she played with it for a bit.

Next time I went over they had traded in their iPod touches (on Amazon) and each had iPad 2s.

wirefloss• 11 years ago

Having myself been invited to join AARP (the most powerful lobby in US, google it) for a few years now I can attest that unfortunately some old people just can't learn internet, even ones with strong engineering background and otherwise highly functional today. What happens to today's users in their eighties only time will tell.

37M Americans don’t use the Web. Here’s why you should care

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