Still, the PRC notes that the 15 percent figure is significantly lower than in the year 2000 when it started researching technology’s effect on society.
Advertisement
Email, Facebook, cat videos – these are just a few of the things that 15 percent of American adults are missing out on every day because they don’t use the Internet. Adults from households earning less than United States dollars 30,000 per year are roughly eight times more likely than the most affluent adults to not use the internet. One-in-five blacks and 18 percent of Hispanics do not use the internet, compared with 14 percent of whites and 5 percent of English-speaking Asian-Americans, the racial or ethnic group least likely to be offline. But Pew’s research also shows a deep inequality: A quarter of Americans who make less than $30,000 a year do not use the Internet, while a third of adults with less than a high school education do.
Cruz and his fellow Republicans are hoping to persuade enough Democrats to aid in thwarting the deal.
According to a 2013 Pew Research survey, American non-internet users said they did not go online mostly because they did not think the internet was relevant to their lives and they found it too hard to use.
The survey also noted that Americans living in urban environments were equally as likely to not use the web as their suburban counterparts at 13 percent each. Meanwhile, 25 percent in rural areas do not use the Internet. However, according to data put forward by Pew Research, the number has remained nearly the same since the past three years. Another 32 percent of people who don’t use the Internet said the technology required to access the Internet is just too tough to get the hang of, and 8 percent said they were “too old to learn”. Expenses also played a role, with 19 percent saying that the cost of owning a computer and an Internet service was why they weren’t online. Lastly, one-third of those with less than a high school education also reported to not use the web.
Despite some groups having persistently lower rates of internet adoption, the vast majority of Americans are online.
Still, Internet use has shot up for some groups over the past 15 years. For example, 86% of adults 65 and older did not go online in 2000; today that figure has been cut in half.
Advertisement
In 2000, fully 48% of Americans were offline, including 81% of those over 65.
