Fierce Telecom: Learn the No. 1 reason some Americans don't use the internet

Learn the No. 1 reason some Americans don't use the internet
By Roger Entner May 19, 2021 10:02am

The U.S. Government, through the NTIA, has been surveying internet usage since 2001. Since 2009, it has also been surveying reasons for not using the internet. Of all the studies that are currently under consideration to be used to justify the broadband stimulus plan, the government’s own NTIA Internet Use Survey, which was done before the conception of the plan, is the most unbiased and insightful. As universal internet access is a foregone conclusion in the current debate, the reasons why people are not using the internet have been reduced to just two factors — lack of availability and cost — when there is a lot more to the story.
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What is the number one reason why Americans are not connected to the internet?

I know it is hard to believe that 13% of Americans are just not interested or do not need to use the internet, especially to those of us who live and die by the internet and are ultra-connected. No matter how much we spend on a national broadband plan to provide access to broadband internet or how much we subsidize internet access, when people don’t see the need or are just not interested, adoption numbers are not going to go up substantially.

Almost half of the 13% of Americans who are not interested in the internet are age 65 or older. A third is between 45 and 65 years of age, a surprising 1/6th is between 25 and 44 and an unsurprisingly low 2% is age 15 to 24. Another remarkable finding from the NTIA survey is that there is no significant ethnic or gender difference among people who are not interested in using the internet. There is also no statistically significant difference between people in urban and rural areas who don’t see a point in using the internet.

13% of Americans are not using the Internet because they see no need for it or just don't want to.

I wouldn't have believed it if not for the actual survey results. A quick summary of the results follows:

Reason	Percentage (as of February 2019)
People using the Internet at home	80%
Not available	0.7%
Too expensive	4%
Doesn't have a suitable computer	0.6%
Privacy or security concerns	0.55%
Not interested or don't need it	13%
Total	98.85%

I assume the remaining 1.15% is due to other reasons not mentioned by the article.

The article concludes by saying that the industry needs to "convince and train" these 13% of Americans that they have a reason to use the Internet.

I disagree. If someone is happily living his life without being connected, why should anybody else believe that this is a problem that needs to be solved. These people will sign up for service if circumstances make it necessary, with or without a marketing blitz targeting them for assimilation.