
37M Americans don’t use the Web. Here’s why you should care - ryanmonroe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/07/29/37-million-american-adults-dont-use-the-web-heres-why-you-should-care/
======
wskinner
"Of the next six adults you meet, chances are one of them has never sent an
e-mail."

This is a misleading way to restate the title of the article. It's misleading
because this statement is not actually equivalent to "1/6 of Americans don't
use the web" and actually obfuscates what might be an interesting topic - how
internet usage is distributed geographically. I suspect that given a person
has read this article on WaPo's website, nearly everyone that person ever
meets is likely to be a user of the Internet.

Perhaps the author could have explored the dichotomy between places where
Internet usage is essentially a daily necessity, and where it is functionally
irrelevant. But I guess that might not fit the standard narrative for this
sort of piece.

\--edited to fix typos

~~~
will_brown
Seeing as the title begins with "37M" (~1/10 Americans) I don't think the
author was using 1 in 6 adults as a way to mislead anyone so much as highlight
a certain demographic where the statistic is almost double that of the general
population.

~~~
true_religion
This distribution isn't uniform. If everyone over 80 hasn't used the internet,
that isn't too surprising. That's over 6 million people already,

------
rm_-rf_slash
One of the strangest part about working at Cornell University - one of the
country's best CS schools - is that a lot of people don't use the Internet at
all, particularly facilities staff. Their phones just text and call. They live
out in the boonies without any internet connection.

And you know what they're missing? The opportunity to pull out their phone and
pretend to be a part of the conversation. These people actually talk to you,
and they listen, too.

Instead of seeing a problem where people don't use the Internet, we should be
looking at what ubiquitous Internet connections are taking away from us.

~~~
norea-armozel
I think that's the other side of the issue, but I think what the author is
trying to get at is the fact there's an entire underclass of poor, uneducated
individuals that are unable to use the Internet for the most basic tasks (govt
services comes to mind). It's not a rosy picture when you think about the
elderly among that population where the majority of services in the rural
areas are very poor (I've had some experience with this while living in
Norton, Kansas for a year). Having access to the Internet could make it easier
to get the services they need.

In a larger context I see this as a problem of laying out infrastructure in
general. Namely, the lion's share of the infrastructure dollars are put into
the most economically wealthy areas. That's okay up to a point that the other
parts of the country (rural) are also citizens of the nation and their part of
the infrastructure (Internet included) is something out of the 1950s or worse.
It's not so much about building an equivalent infrastructure (overbuilt and
expensive) for the rural parts of America, but creating infrastructure that is
compatible and scalable to the needs of those regions. In my opinion, leaving
them with dial up or satellite Internet isn't an option.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
To clarify, I do think that people should have access to the Internet if they
want it, but there is a tendency on places like Hacker News to assume that
once everyone is connected, we will solve societal problems (as opposed to
individual ones, like elder citizens that need help), and it's entirely
possible that it could introduce even more concerns. For example, studies have
shown that the average viewer of Fox News is less truthfully informed than
people who don't consume any news. Enabling information access also allows the
propagation of knowingly wrong information, regardless of the source or
intention.

If people want Internet access, they should have it, but we shouldn't fool
ourselves into believing it will solve our greater problems, or that society
will crumble without providing access to these last miles.

~~~
norea-armozel
I'm not so much concerned about the media-side of the Internet access problem
but rather that government services at the State level are becoming harder to
find offline. Back in the 90s when I had to register a car, most grocery
stores and any government buildings (libraries included) had the forms needed
to expedite the process. Today, I'm sure those forms are there but in most
cases they expect users to own a PC or at least access to one that has a
printer. And some services are now being processed solely by web access which
makes this problem even worse when you think of services for the elderly or
disabled in this situation.

Part of the solution is building the infrastructure up to the same base
standard everywhere. And the other part is trying to rebuild the previous
physical distribution of the services (harder still since many Tea Party
Republicans have taken over in rural governments which oppose welfare at any
cost). So, it's not about making sure everyone is connected. It's making sure
everyone has access to those services and goods we all consume.

And trust me, towns like Norton in Kansas aren't the exception but rather the
norm in terms of how poorly serviced they are by their county and state
governments.

I won't speak on the matter of private industries servicing the rural
communities because I think that problem is far harder to solve because of
local values and tastes (money exists out there, but not the demand).

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Thank you for mentioning the case of previously ubiquitous government forms. I
am too young to remember them and did not factor them into my analysis. Point
well-made and taken.

------
striking
It's pretty clear that adoption of any technology nowadays follows a logistic
curve. That is to say, giving the same amount of money gets less people
onboard every time you do so. At some point, it is no longer economically
worth paying to introduce more people to the technology (because moneyInvested
> moneyEarnable as you get closer to the asymptote).

Clickbait title, 4/10\. Article doesn't even tell me directly why I should
care besides "poverty and inequality" while a couple of paragraphs before
stating "34 percent said they didn't find the Internet relevant to them".

Also, it's worth considering: maybe people just don't want to use the
Internet. Plenty of libraries carry access, and plenty more will soon. What
else can you do, at that point?

~~~
hodwik
Couldn't they just... not want to use the internet?

I intentionally didn't use the internet for a few years after college. I found
it too distracting, and just had too much I wanted to do in the real world to
waste my time.

I got a lot more done in my spare time, read real books, and had a lot more
friends that I saw much more regularly than I do now.

~~~
matwood
The internet is a tool like anything else. You can waste time on it or be
productive. To assume the 'real' world is not a time waster and the internet
is, is a false dichotomy. People wasted plenty of time before the internet.

I'm also not sure what's the point of reading 'real' books. The internet and
technology in general has allowed me to read more books than I ever thought I
would. From book discovery to reading convenience, the internet has made books
more accessible to more people than than any other invention since the
library.

~~~
hodwik
I think that Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message" gets across my
position here. There is in Internet media something which engenders a short
attention span, an addiction to novelty. Something which pushes breadth-
thinking over depth-thinking, and which causes us to relate to other humans in
inhumane ways. We have all the worlds information at our fingertips, but do we
give any of it the time it deserves?

Yes, it is _merely_ a tool. But tools aren't really use-case neutral. Bombs
and stethoscopes are obvious examples.

------
savanaly
If they don't want to use the internet, they don't have to, right? The
benefits and cost of internet use are concentrated on the individual, so I'm
not sure that we should expend a lot of effort to force them to "join" the
internet if they don't want it.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If they don't want to use the internet, they don't have to, right?

Sure.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about the social factors that result
in them choosing not, and the social impacts that that choice has.

> The benefits and cost of internet use are concentrated on the individual

There certainly are private costs and benefits; an underlying premise of the
article -- which, to be fair, it seems to mostly assume rather than support,
despite the fact that the support for that would be the answer to the question
posed in the headline -- is that there are also social costs and benefits, and
that they are important.

> so I'm not sure that we should expend a lot of effort to force them to
> "join" the internet if they don't want it.

None of the efforts discussed in the article, or its linked articles, is about
efforts to _force_ anyone to join the internet. So, while I'm sure most would
agree with you, you seem to be beating a strawman.

~~~
savanaly
You're right that I was off the mark when I talked about forcing them to
"join" the internet-- whoops

------
lostcolony
...I'm confused by this article.

'Many more, 34 percent, said they didn't find the Internet relevant to them
(...). Thirty-two percent said the Web was too difficult to use, according to
Pew.'

'By contrast, there are real structural challenges (poverty and inequality)
that are keeping younger, less socially mobile populations from becoming
America's next great inventors or scientists or civil servants'

So 2/3rds of the responses say the problem is either that the web isn't
relevant to them, or that it's too hard to use, but it's -poverty and
inequality- that are the problem?

Then elsewhere, "Mostly they're poorer, older and undereducated, according to
the Pew Research Center's latest figures." but then the article says "And it's
not merely a matter of waiting for old fuddy-duddies who don't "get it" to die
off: As the data show, older people have been among the quickest to adopt the
Internet among the disconnected population." Doesn't that latter bit seem to
imply that the 'older' part of the former will be solved with time? Or that
the 'older' part isn't a problem at all? And what about that "younger, less
socially mobile populations" bit they referenced (prior paragraph)?

I am trying to make sense of both 'why (I) should care' (is it that these
people are wrong, and that the internet really -is- relevant to them, and/or
that they just need better training on how to use it? The article also says
'But these remaining holdouts are likely to be the hardest to reach, because
you can't just throw money at them', but the way to solve both those issues,
and the remaining adjectives the Pew Research Center quote references
('poorer' and 'undereducated') is by education and addressing poverty, which
requires throwing money at the problem), -and- what to do about it, and I'm
not really finding it in the article.

Note, I'm -not- saying that this isn't a problem, or that I can't come up with
reasons why it would be. I'm just saying that the article seems to be saying
"37M Americans aren't online. That's a problem", and nothing more. Not why
that's a problem, not who it affects and why(well, they cite survey responses,
then seem to posit their own reasons that run counter to the survey), not how
it affects society at large (or me individually, beyond the possibility that
some of these people would become great if only they used the internet,
something that they just take for granted), and not what to do about it.

------
rcavezza
These numbers don't surprise me at all. Poorer, older, and less educated
people don't use the internet.

------
140am
according to the article "break it down by race and class, and suddenly the
numbers look very bleak"..

\- 15% of US adults (~37m people) don't use the internet = 20% of black
Americans = 25% of Americans who make less than $30,000 a year = 25% of adults
who live in rural areas = 30% of Americans who've never finished high school

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
How many of those are retired seniors (pre-boomers) who have no real need to
use the internet?

~~~
venomsnake
It is good that retired people don't have the time to learn anything new or
the need to connect with people.

~~~
neverartful
Just because someone decides not to learn the Internet doesn't mean that
they're not learning a bunch of other things. Like reading printed books,
magazines, being part of clubs, etc. It also doesn't mean that they don't have
a need to connect with people. They probably do it over the telephone or in
person (or even through handwritten letters).

The older generations went through many decades living without the internet.
Do you really think that the internet is necessary (or even desirable) for
them to live productive and happy lives?

~~~
venomsnake
> The older generations went through many decades living without the internet.
> Do you really think that the internet is necessary (or even desirable) for
> them to live productive and happy lives?

I think that access to the internet is human right.

------
wainstead
I think in the not too distant future, if "using the Web" equates to "using
Siri or Google Now" then that number will drop dramatically.

------
wirefloss
Having myself been invited to join AARP (the most powerful lobby in US, google
it) for a few years now I can attest that unfortunately some old people just
can't learn internet, even ones with strong engineering background and
otherwise highly functional today. What happens to today's users in their
eighties only time will tell.

------
afarrell
According to the Texas bar association, for a huge number of poor people (at
least, the ones that come to them to try to get free services to help with
mediation and guardianship of relatives), their only device to access the
Internet is a smartphone.

~~~
amyjess
Most likely, that refers to the homeless.

It makes sense: homeless people have no residence, so nowhere to keep a PC,
but a budget smartphone and a low-end data plan isn't terribly expensive, and
it's a useful investment, because having any kind of Internet connection at
all is instrumental to getting a job and thus staying afloat and possibly
making enough to get out of homelessness.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Most likely, that refers to the homeless.

Most likely, it refers to exactly what it says: poor people presenting for
certain services; younger, minority, and low-income Americans are more likely
than the population at large to be "smartphone-dependent", that is, have a
smartphone as their sole source of internet access. [0] While it is (by far)
not a _majority_ in any of those groups, its a significant number.

[0] see, e.g., [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/01/6-facts-
abou...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/01/6-facts-about-
americans-and-their-smartphones/)

------
MrFoof
> _But these remaining holdouts are likely to be the hardest to reach, because
> you can 't just throw money at them. Of non-Internet users surveyed in 2013,
> just 19 percent cited the cost of Internet or owning a computer as an
> obstacle to adoption. Many more, 34 percent, said they didn't find the
> Internet relevant to them (though with seemingly 99.9 percent of the Web
> devoted to cat GIFs, perhaps they have a point). Thirty-two percent said the
> Web was too difficult to use, according to Pew._

I wonder how many fell into the bucket of "found a _computer_ (not the web)
too difficult to use." I'm quite serious.

My father, despite building TVs from Heathkits, is a high school dropout. My
mother did graduate high school but is a bit of a luddite. For decades I would
describe their personal computing experience as "clunky". My father understood
the hardware (hell, HE was the one who upgraded our 486), but my mother is of
the mindset that a computer is a complicated thing you're liable to "screw up"
or "break".

She's now 60, he's 66. Previously their computer use was minimal, aside from
my dad meticulously maintaining his media library, which mom chides him for
("he's going to break something"). Yet, I give her an iPad, and everything
changes. She has no beef with it. She's not afraid of it. She uses it probably
4 to 6 hours a day, every day, managing what she cares about within a few
select apps. Well, it was a few select apps. Last I looked at her iPad she has
nearly 80. She also now has a Kindle, a FitBit, and an AppleTV.

Moreover, they live in an elderly community. Average age is mid 70s. Folks
with landlines, and a surprising number that have never owned a computer.
Ever. It was really odd to find out my mother was convincing people to get
iPads, and she'd have my father go do a simple installation of an Apple
Airport Extreme (since it can be managed via iOS), and giving folks a crash
course.

You now have octogenarians, who never previously used a computer for the
previous 80 years of their life, playing games with _each other_ online,
sending emails and IMs, looking for funny cat GIFs, streaming movies and TV
shows on Netflix, filling their Instagram accounts with new photos, managing
recipes, tracking their health/nutrition, connecting with grandkids on
Facebook, browsing the web and shopping online, and so on and so forth. I
think my folks have brought nearly twenty people into the 21st century in just
three years, with my mother of all people leading the charge to get them on
board.

Some have gone further. Some now have Kindles so they can read on the bus or
at the doctor's office. Some have set-top boxes which they use to stream with.
Though a computer? Zero. For the older generation, tablets don't seem to have
the stigma a full-fledged personal computer does, and with only a little
nudging and demonstration of how simple things can be, they're damn willing to
see what they've been missing.

~~~
theandrewbailey
My mom was a bit like yours (afraid of destroying it). After I convinced her
that there's no self-destruct button on PCs, she doesn't think like that. I
don't think my dad had that fear, but despite using computers for over 20
years, he still hesitates every so often to decide whether to right click or
left. I have them on Linux anymore.

~~~
MrFoof
>After I convinced her that there's no self-destruct button on PCs

I attempted that. For nearly two decades, to no avail. Regardless of whether
it was Windows or Mac OS X.

I had brought over an iPad 2 to show them. They had iPod touches (an upgrade
after I gave them Nanos many years earlier) and she played with it for a bit.

Next time I went over they had traded in their iPod touches (on Amazon) and
each had iPad 2s.

------
Grue3
The article doesn't answer why I, a non-American, should care.

~~~
140am
You, race does not matter, might care if your target audience is among the
mentioned ones and in that case according to their numbers would have 20-25%
of your audience you can't reach via or market online.

~~~
codingdave
Or instead of thinking of them as potential audiences for whatever you are
selling, you could care about them as people, and care because it is hard
enough to lift yourself out of poverty, why make it even harder by living
without the resources available online?

------
homakov
And why should I care?

~~~
norea-armozel
Marginal productivity of the nation depends on all sectors having the
essentially same infrastructure. Rural and poorer parts of the nation are in
such a mess that these people are dissuaded from using the Internet to find
jobs or government services.

~~~
homakov
Great, that's what I wanted to see in the article.

