The vast majority of U.S. households that are not online have no interest in the Web, an indication that Internet penetration has stalled, a market research firm said Friday.
A survey of 1,000 U.S. homes showed that about 36 percent of U.S. households were not online, and only 2 percent intended to subscribe to an Internet service this year, according to Parks Associates. The percent of households without Web access extrapolated to 39 million homes.
“We’re starting to hit a wall as far as Internet penetration goes,” John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates, said. “We’re getting down to the people who just don’t want it.”
Just another predictable result from an insular culture that rejects science, rejects education, rejoices in ignorance and turns its back on participating in the whole world.
Oh my god, next thing is you will be calling them isolationists.!
What if these people also didn’t watch tv or listen to the radio?
The Ignorance can only compound I tell you.
“Just another predictable result from an insular culture that rejects science, rejects education, rejoices in ignorance and turns its back on participating in the whole world.”
Wow, you talking about Afghanistan or America? That statement could apply to both.
Wow! Such strong opinions over which does not matter. So they choose to read newspaper and “watch” the news. Those are mediums that have worked for years.
Hey, would you start paying $100 a month ($1200 a year, $12,000 per decade) for cable and internet if you didn’t know what it is?
“rejoices in ignorance”… come to Southern Utah, I’ll show scary examples
Many seniors (typically over 70) have no intention to ever have an Internet account, as they don’t see the need. My mom and my in-laws are among this group.
Your statement is harsh, and unnecessary.
My inlaws just returned their laptop to me…too much trouble connecting to the net via dialup, so it just wasn’t worth the hassle.
They’re fully connected to the world, just via pre-internet ways.
dude i think thats completely true. people without the internet really miss out on a lot. yes they are ginorant for not participating in the internet, and yes america does suck. getting your info from tv/newspaper is pretty ineffective, considering one man owns almost every news media outlet in our country. thats like going to only one store for all your needs (like wal-mart for example) when there are a billion other stores that practice fair business laws and have a better selection anyway. dumbass people. GET ON THE NET, READ DVORAK, AND LEARN SOMETHING!!
it’s only a sample of 1000 homes, which can hardly be taken seriously at all let alone scientifically. Plus there’s no mention as to where these 1000 homes are located. I bet none of those 1000 homes were located in northern California, LA, NYC, or any place with moderate population that’s not located in the middle of a friggin dessert.
#7, Floyd — actually one of the fastest growing segments on the Web is seniors.
Steve.. Technology back in the 80s/90s didn’t LET YOU be as “connected” as we are today. So you weren’t alone in how you interacted with people back about 20 years ago, everyone was like this.
The sad thing is most people don’t have memories 20 years ago, since they were even born yet. Gawd I feel old.
Eideard — The senior segment on the Internet is growing probably because boomers (who generally, but not always, have been on the Web and Internet for awhile) are getting older. OTOH our parents aren’t bothering to connect.
laineypie
Problem is that most news websites are ran by the same TV media anyway. So you’re getting the same news either way. Most average joes don’t want to spend another $50 a month on complicated “computars” and “interweb” to just get the same crap from cable TV, while their PCs get infected with trojans and end up zombie bots.
I knew the post + comments would be provocative. I guess brevity also prompts misperception:
1. David, “insular” isn’t isolationist. Even adding in “parochial” or “reactionary” doesn’t draw social or political policies away from aggressively expansionist.
3. Scott, I would hardly be the first in these pages to compare some of our supermarket religions to the Taliban.
4. Patrick, we probably agree the medium is NOT the message. But, in a era and nation where traditional print and electronic media aren’t especially noted for courage or investigation — and the breadth of worldwide sources available on the Web is a positive, LLeft or Right — avoiding the Web for whatever reasons is a negative.
The first offline conversation I had about the topic, this morning, brought up a point no one’s touched at all. What about the kids in these families? They’re very likely growing up computer illiterate as well as Web-illiterate. The study made the point that economics was a low single-digit portion of this result; so, we’re not addressing the digital divide. We’re discussing families that choose to ignore an aperture noted for offering up forbidden fruit.
Don’t wish to spend much time with it, Floyd — if need be I’ll do the Googling you might; but, both the AARP and the seniors’ org I belong to, the ARA [much more working class than the other] track the growth of computer use and accessing the Web as pretty much concurrent.
The growth is measured in terms in non-users becoming users. That’s the operative definition. Has nothing to do with denizens of the WWW growing older.
Chuckle, I wonder if Eideard deliberately held this for the weekend. The survey says almost one-fifth of the absent do access the Internet from their work computers. I live in a state capitol where my newspaper friends declare any local controversy means no state business gets done the whole day — because everyone’s busy on paid time — logging in to one or another local site to “express” themselves. They’re obviously not here, today.
Everyone else is either discussing why all these folks aren’t here — or offering up excuses for them. Pretty funny.
for the escuse of Viri, and it’s to hard – Get a Mac.
The telephone has been around for ages, but I don’t use one, I tend to gravitate towards email. Voice is to face to face for me. So Maybe I have taken an old concept of writing letters to people and found a new method to getting the letter delivered.
As far as T.V. Goes – I get my news from the web, and other content via BitTorrent – but I am still watching T.V. right.
Maybe a better comparison is to say, T.V. and standard media is a take what you get and getting the information via the web is a get what I want.
so let me see if i get the direction that this conversation is going:
-Reading, writing, and meeting people face to face = ignorance
-Surfing the net, sending email, and IM chating = intelegance
Me welcomes yous to Bizarro world.
“What about the kids in these families? They’re very likely growing up computer illiterate as well as Web-illiterate.”
BFD. Back when I bought my first 300 bps modem, 1984, 99% of you were not online. I don’t see any difference in ability, level of knowledge, or intelligence (perhaps a slight decrease) since then. There is just more noise available to filter.
I’ve learned the most from the real world: school, work, people I’ve studied/worked with, and travel.
The internet is a nice toy, and an expensive one.
If I could give people something, it would be the ability to travel outside their towns, states, countries, continents. Anyone who thinks the US sucks has not traveled far.
Anyway, my mom is 65, and I gave her a computer and AOL to allow her to be “connected”. It gives her another way to be busy.
Uh, BL, it was called baud back then. I still have my Model 100 TRS-80 with 300 baud modem. The OS was written by a kid named Gates when his company had fewer than 100 employees.
Let’s see, it was 1983 and I’d just returned from my 7th trip outside the United States and it was only slightly less embarrassing than earlier travels — watching the reputation of our nation as the bully of the world expand from Central and South America to VietNam.
But, then, I wasn’t hanging out with middle-class college kiddies on their summer holidaze.. Anyone who thinks the US has some innate superiority over any other nation or culture should scrape that crust of bigotry away from their brain.
So it is your contention that not wanting the internet at home makes you a backwards insular religious fundy?
That has got to be one of the most absurd assertions I have ever heard.
Well, you wander back from watching a bit of proper football and I see we had a good bit of weekend traffic here. Perhaps I should be cranky more often?
Sorry, Andy — I don’t give logic lessons on the weekend. Not even to correct freshman foolishness.
Anyway, Blackburn Rovers 1 — 0 Arsenal. Enough to make a lot of folks happy. A hard fought match. Brad Friedel was terrific in goal, especially the second half. Man of the match was my favorite Lancashire hard man, Craig Bellamy — and I’m not even a Rovers fan. Though Mark Hughes is one of the best.
Ed,
No need to apologize my good man. This is a good subject Just look at the number of responses. Ok, well, three are your own. That still leaves 21 other comments. And most of us disagree with the survey results.
Reading the article reminds me of a valuable lesson back in the days of Sociology 203, Interpreting Surveys. Don’t invent explanations explanations that are not self evident. Be consistent
Example,: The vast majority of U.S. households that are not online have no interest in the Web,
Yet further down the page it states that only 18% aren’t interested while 31% of homes do not need access because they have it at work.
Example,: …42 percent of U.S. households currently have dial-up connections, and 4 percent plan to upgrade this year. Eighteen percent of those households, however, said they do not intend to upgrade
42% of homes use dial-up internet access. The four % that will upgrade their dial-up and the 18% that will not upgrade their dial-up add up to 22%. So what will the other 20% do, drop their connection?
36% of homes are not on the internet. 4% say it costs too much, 31% don’t because they have access at work, 18% just aren’t interested in the internet, and 8% didn’t know how to use the internet. That adds up to 61% of homes giving reasons why they do not have internet access.
In addition, offline households don’t have easy access to information that could help them find better jobs and prices on goods and services.
Not true. Our local WorkForce center has several computers connected on-line PLUS the staff to help their clients use them to the greatest potential. As well, our local Libraries also have several connected computers each with staff that can help you do searches. Any tool is useless if you cannot use it to it’s best potential.
A question I didn’t see answered is how many homes NOT on-line even have a computer in the home.
Did I mention, good cartoon to lead off.
It seems silly to think the American culture is going down the toilet because not enough people have or want internet access.
And what does the cartoon have to do with internet access? What’s wrong with kids reading the Bible? Its also silly to think that anyone considers the Bible a science textbook. Don’t be so lame.
I guess its about the whole “teaching Intelligent Design” thing. I got no problem with Evolution not having a monopoly on the origins discussion. And ID *can* be taught from a scientific standpoint.
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2 Timothy 4:3
This time has come.
The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice. Proverbs 12:15
Those who believe that computers and the internet is the savior for all, will one day be left powerless. What will you do when the power goes out.
That cartoon and the “Just another predictable result from an insular culture that rejects science, rejects education, rejoices in ignorance and turns its back on participating in the whole world.”, is very sad.
Gee, I thought the real reason for the declining market penetration was due to ISP’s providing sub-standard speeds at super-standard pricing. The rest of the country is smart enough to wait for $20.00 per month fibre to the house. As far as the non-sequitur religious fundie reference, I don’t think our current administration is causing this particular problem. If *real* broadband was more readily available at reasonable prices, market penetration would reach 99.99% eventually. But our communcation companies have little intention on investing in communications grid expansion. The hot markets for this are in China, not here. Simple greed and corruption are slowing things down. But maybe it doesn’t matter.
Internet access may make our culture more *sophisticated”, but it does not make us better educated or more enlightened. Let’s take that money we’re all blowing on overpriced ‘Net access and put it into our schools. Then all that time we spend on the ‘Net can be used to discipline our children so they can learn and participate.
Having grown up with the internet, it is so deeply embedded in my day-to-day life that it would be a major annoyance to go without it. I currently have to pay 60 bucks a month for my “high-speed” access, which I really do without question. And unless I want to go back to dial-up, its the only choice I have at my current residence.
If I look from the perspective of someone that has never had the internet, and seldom uses a computer (if at all) — purchasing a new computer and/or internet connection could easily be a large deterrent. Would the benefit of in-home internet access outway the new monthly costs for providing it?
as much as some of you techies want it to be, the internet and computors isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
I only have a computor so my friends won’t think I’m strange and not invite me to their parties and stuff.
And the cartoon and the comment really are over the top. Though I have got used to Europeans saying these things about the great unwashed that is America. But it still gets old. Why is it that anyone or thing that dosen’t fit a particular world view is always belittled and slandered? Why not just accept it for what it is, people making their own choices according to how THEY want to live.
I didn’t have the internet in my household for the longest time. Why should I? Free access at my local library, not to mention work. I spent the rest of my time enjoying life! But I guess this is a result of my culture rejoicing in ignorance.