Five percent of Americans have resisted the siren song of cat listicles and hashtags. Specifically, they think the Internet is “irrelevant,” to use words of Pew, which just released a report on the demographic of Americans without Internet.
In total, 15% of Americans don’t go online for a variety of reasons. By far the largest reason is that it’s a “waste of time”. A smaller slice of Americans can’t get online for a few reasons related to the digital divide: the Internet is too expensive, it’s inaccessible in their area, or it’s too complicated. The delightful chart below shows all the glorious reasons why some Americans live off the grid:
About half (49%) of these offliners qualify for Medicare.
The very same percentage of older users do cheat a little. 44% of offliners have asked (probably their granddaughter) to use the Internet on their behalf”
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But, perhaps the gem of the report is that 3% of Americans still hear fax-machine music to go online. Yes, a sizable slice of Netizens still use dial-up.
You can view the full report here.
