I was alerted to this intriguing data point by ValPak’s Twitter feed: according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 21% of US adults do not use the Internet. That works out to about 50 million people (figuring the US adult population is about 240M).
Source: Pew, 4/10 n=2,252 US adults
September 20th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
A lot of people say that — but use the internet at work all the time and do not count that. I am not surprised that a percentage is just not interested, they might never want to sit at a computer at home because they are on networks too much at the office….
September 20th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
1. Its a minority
2. Assuming price and age are issues, they aren’t the targets for most sales
3. IMHO that is sort of a shame.
My mom doesn’t use the internet. I suppose age is an issue. My sister, who lives nearest to her, didn’t want to open a can of worms by teaching her.
The other day I was on the phone w/ my mom while simultaneously IM’ing with my brother and passing his comments to her.
Too bad she couldn’t get IM and phone simultaneously also. It was fun.
But after all is said and done she doesn’t miss it and she doesn’t seem to care.
September 20th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
My mom who is 70 is very active online, uses Skype and so on. It is partly generational but not entirely. Speed and cost are factors here too.
September 20th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
I didn’t actually read the report that you refer to in your post, but I’l bet that there
were a lot of “older” folks responding to that survey. It would be interesting to see the age breakdown of the people surveyed…
September 20th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Unfortunately they don’t segment by age but younger users are more engaged with online. The 21% probably disproportionately comes from over 55.
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:44 pm
One in Five Americans believe Obama is a Cactus.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/poll-1-in-5-americans-believe-obama-is-a-cactus,18127/
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:55 pm
Fair enough