The vast majority of U.S. households that are not online have no interest in the Web, an indication that Internet penetration has stalled, a market research firm said Friday.
A survey of 1,000 U.S. homes showed that about 36 percent of U.S. households were not online, and only 2 percent intended to subscribe to an Internet service this year, according to Parks Associates. The percent of households without Web access extrapolated to 39 million homes.
“We’re starting to hit a wall as far as Internet penetration goes,” John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates, said. “We’re getting down to the people who just don’t want it.”
Just another predictable result from an insular culture that rejects science, rejects education, rejoices in ignorance and turns its back on participating in the whole world.
Proof that Dvorak has been hanging out with the TwiT crowd too long. His only explanation is that “They don’t get it!”
Sound familiar?
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,91590,00.asp
A better explanation:
http://www.internetisshit.org/
As many of the commenters have said, connecting with people offline in the real world is much more rewarding.
I just had two of my close relatives tell me that they were giving up the Internet and now I had to write them with snail mail. They both had those super-easy email appliances!
Theories anyone?
From my observation, it’s not age or IQ that makes people tech-incompetent. It has something to do with a very specific aptitude.
—
PS to Moss: >>I still have my Model 100 TRS-80 with 300 baud modem.
I still have my Tandy 102. Amazingly it still works about as good as the day I bought it! I remind myself of my Grandfather who never got rid of his Model A… it was so meaningful in his life and kept running, so he couldn’t let it go even though he had a whole string of far better cars.
The 102 was my third computer but it was the first one that was really useful to me, including the whole BBS thing, including FidoNet. That was such a mind-blower. I can’t let it go but, thankfully, it’s a lot smaller than a Model A!
Oh great. Now the Koreans will be unstoppable.
Its also silly to think that anyone considers the Bible a science textbook.
Why would anyone use the bible to teach science?
And ID *can* be taught from a scientific standpoint.
Comment by Mark — 2/25/2006 @ 6:17 pm
Oh, OK. Thanks Mark for answering that question.
***
Moss & GregAllen
Darn you guys date me. I used a 1200 baud modem in my Compaq 386. By that time, however, the dinosaurs had stopped knocking down the telephone poles so the service was a little better then in your day.
(Greg — I have a Tandy 102 too — something like three months for a set of 4 AA batteries. Used it to take notes in high school.)
Many (not all) of my students without internet, can’t afford internet. If you somehow find a polite way to ask whether they will be able to afford a computer, to keep the computer malware free enough to stay working, and a connection a year from now, the answer will still be no.
Here’s how you find out whether a student actually has a connection —
Q: Do you have an email account?
A: Of course!
Q: Is it working?
A: No, it’s broken right now.
Good morning, Greg — keep forgetting you’re halfway round the world.
In the same vein as your Grandpa’s model A, my old accountant back East had a grandpa who did the same — till he finally stopped using it because of infirmity. But he had someone completely disassemble it — and put it in boxes in the attic!
We found it there, years later, when the family was picking up and moving.
________
I guess I should start a discussion about convergence next. Lots of people who everyone here swears “don’t need the hookup” — are the same people I see every day unable to drive down the street or walk through a suspermarket aisle without a cell phone adhered to their skull.
To Mr. Fushion who said his mom thought it was too late in life to learn something new……
That’s sad. Very sad. Once you have stopped learning you have stopped living and growing. I am not saying she has to learn computers, but a comment like that sounds like she has given up on anything and everything. She should be learning something every day .
I will say that is one of the main reasons that those who are older say that they don’t want to mess with computers; “I’m too old to learn that” Hogwash. Keep the mind fresh.
My dad learned new throughout his entire career. By the time most are settling in and getty ready for retirement, he changed what he was doing twice. Once going from photography to running an in-house television studio, then from that to running the corporate network. In both cases, he had zero experience doing either one until he got there. He took classes (lots of them), read, and learned. It kept his job exciting and fresh right up until he retired.
My message here is to tell you mom to not give up on life — it sounds like she has.
Mike T
#41, I’d say that the Internet is worse than the TV because it’s eroding the professional and making too many people think that they don’t need professionals anymore, simply because they have access to some of the same information (whether or not the information is true or valid, which they often can’t tell for themselves).
And, Web 2.0 strives to legitimize this movement.
Forgive me for not reading all 41 comments before shooting my mouth off- (oopse, I mean, stating my opinion! 😉 ) about this topic. I have worked for 8 years in a public library. In that time, we’ve gone from having 2 computers with the Net on them to 9. Nine! We’d have more if we could physically fit more tables in the building. The waiting list to get on is interminable. The list is long because lots of people have no Net access at home. They can’t afford it, don’t know how to work it, or they need it so rarely they don’t care to own one. Other users say their computer is too old to get the Net, or it’s broken. All of these people have no intention of getting Net acess this year since they basically don’t have a computer.
And yet….Here they are, at the public library, using the Net.
Why?
Because “It” Can’t Be Done Any Other Way. What “It”? Well, their information need. Here’s a great example: they’ve gone to Hess, or Books a Million, or the local medical school or hospital or wherever, and they are told that if they want to apply for a job, they *have* to fill out the app *online*. Seriously. For a minimum wage job flpping burgers, selling books, or changing bed linens at the hospital, they have to fill out the job app online.
I guess what I’m taking way too long to say is that I believe that lots of people aren’t interested in the computer or the Net. Today. I bet a lot of people weren’t interested in telephones or the lightbulb, either. Today there are people who live without either the phone or electricity, but I doubt that most of them are really happy about that, unless they are people who have gone into the woods to live deliberately, as Thoreau would put it and grow their own food and magically don’t have to pay taxes. I believe that as time goes on, more and more things will not be doable offline, and as this transition happens, everyone who wants to have a decent life will come online somehow, even if it’s just at the library. Those who are left with no interest in using computers or the Net will, well, not be able to get through school and get a job. And that puts them in a bad position indeed…
#39 Mike T
My mother does many things. Recently she finished a hand made quilt. My older sister scanned a lot of old photos for her and then printed them on fabric. My mother used those for the quilt. It is very beautiful.
My mother still paints. She is pretty good at it too. She also belongs to a book club that meets at the local community center every week. My wife calls her a gourmet cook, and my wife is a darn fine cook in her own right. And there are too many more things I could mention my mother still does at age 81.
She has not given up. But thank you for the concern. My point is that with everything on her plate at the moment, she is happier doing things other then being on-line. Oh, and she doesn’t want to learn to change the oil in the car either.
I wouldn’t be surprised if spyware and trojans were enough to keep people away from the Internet. One hit to an inexperienced user by these types of things and their computer may be disabled or have to be repaired at great expense (only to be infected again, most likely). It gets expensive pretty quickly.
Some people just think their computer has worn out after this garbage piles up, and that it’s necessary to buy a new computer. From that point of view, you need to buy a new computer every 2 years, if not more frequently.
mbg
Good point. I hadn’t thought of that as a reason for not owning a computer. It might be folded into the “intimidated” group. Though, I would think there is enough notice to protect your computer that newbies would be aware of the precautions to take.
Newspapers don’t print porn. Regular TV does not broadcast porn. Therefore the Internet is not only essential, everyone should be mandated to have it.