According to a national survey by Kathryn Zickhur and Aaron Smith of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 70 percent of American adults ages 18 and older have had a high-speed broadband connection at home as of May.
Princeton Survey Research Associates International conducted telephone interviews for the results of the survey. They interviewed 2,252 adults, ages 18 and older, from April 17 to May 19.
“Groups with the highest rates of home broadband adoption continue to be college graduates, adults under age 50 and adults living in households earning at least $50,000, as well as whites and adults living in urban or suburban areas,” the report claims.
Amazingly, 3 percent of adults still rely on a dial-up connection.
As expected, the study found that age, education and household income are among the strongest factors associated with home broadband adoption. In a report published in 2012 by the same authors, 97 percent of adults that earn $75,000 or more per year have broadband Internet speeds.
Back in 2000, researchers found that 51 percent of nonusers avoided the Internet because they thought it was dangerous. Today, fear of the Internet seems to have dissipated, but it has been replaced with a belief that the Internet is simply not relevant. Someone should show them Google.
“About one in five people that do not use the Internet (21 percent) mentioned price-related reasons, and a similar number cite usability issues (such as not knowing how to go online or being physically unable to),” the report finds.
Lack of access to the Internet used to be a large issue, but today, with laptops, tablets and smartphones, the Internet is ubiquitous, and only 6 percent say that a lack of access is the main reason they avoid the Internet.
