THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF INTERNET USE
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Internet is becoming an increasingly vital tool in our information society. More Americans are going online to conduct such day-to-day activities as business transactions, personal correspondence, research and information-gathering, and shopping. Each year, being digitally connected becomes ever more critical to economic, educational, and social advancement. Now that a large number of Americans regularly use the Internet to conduct daily activities, people who lack access to those tools are at a growing disadvantage. Therefore, raising the level of digital inclusion -- by increasing the number of Americans using the technology tools of the digital age -- is a vitally important national goal.
This report, Falling Through the Net: Toward Digital Inclusion, is the fourth in the Falling Through the Net series. In this report, we measure the extent of digital inclusion by looking at households and individuals that have a computer and an Internet connection. We measure the digital divide, as we have before, by looking at the differences in the shares of each group that is digitally connected. For the first time, we also provide data on high-speed access to the Internet, as well as access to the Internet and computers by people with disabilities.
The data show that the overall level of U.S. digital inclusion is rapidly increasing:
The share of households with Internet access soared by 58%, rising from 26.2% in December 1998 to 41.5% in August 2000.
More than half of all households (51.0%) have computers, up from 42.1% in December 1998.
There
were 116.5 million Americans online at some location in August 2000,
31.9 million more than there were only 20 months earlier.
The share of individuals using the Internet rose by 35.8%, from 32.7% in December 1998 to 44.4% in August 2000. If growth continues at that rate, more than half of all Americans will be using the Internet by the middle of 2001.
The rapid uptake of new technologies is occurring among most groups of Americans, regardless of income, education, race or ethnicity, location, age, or gender, suggesting that digital inclusion is a realizable goal. Groups that have traditionally been digital "have nots" are now making dramatic gains:
The gap between households in rural areas and households nationwide that access the Internet has narrowed from 4.0 percentage points in 1998 to 2.6 percentage points in 2000. Rural households are much closer to the nationwide Internet penetration rate of 41.5%. In rural areas this year, 38.9% of the households had Internet access, a 75% increase from 22.2% in December 1998.
Americans
at every income level are connecting at far higher rates from their
homes, particularly at the middle income levels. Internet access
among households earning $35,000 to $49,000 rose from 29.0% in
December 1998 to 46.1% in August 2000. Today, more than two-thirds
of all households earning more than $50,000 have Internet
connections (60.9% for households earning $50,000 to $74,999 and
77.7% for households earning above $75,000).
Access
to the Internet is also expanding across every education level,
particularly for those with some high school or college education.
Households headed by someone with "some college experience"
showed the greatest expansion in Internet penetration of all
education levels, rising from 30.2% in December 1998 to 49.0% in
August 2000.
Blacks
and Hispanics, while they still lag behind other groups, have shown
impressive gains in Internet access. Black households are now more
than twice as likely to have home access than they were 20 months
ago, rising from 11.2% to 23.5%. Hispanic households have also
experienced a tremendous growth rate during this period, rising from
12.6% to 23.6%.
The disparity in Internet usage between men and women has largely disappeared. In December 1998, 34.2% of men and 31.4% of women were using the Internet. By August 2000, 44.6% of men and a statistically indistinguishable 44.2% of women were Internet users.
Individuals 50 years of age and
older -- while still less likely than younger Americans to use the
Internet -- experienced the highest rates of growth in Internet
usage of all age groups: 53% from December 1998 to August 2000,
compared to a 35% growth rate for individual Internet usage
nationwide.
Nonetheless, a digital divide remains or has expanded slightly in some cases, even while Internet access and computer ownership are rising rapidly for almost all groups. For example, the August 2000 data show that noticeable divides still exist between those with different levels of income and education, different racial and ethnic groups, old and young, single and dual-parent families, and those with and without disabilities.
Persons
with a disability are only half as likely to have access to the
Internet as those without a disability: 21.6% compared to 42.1%. And
while just under 25% of those without a disability have never used a
personal computer, close to 60% of those with a disability fall into
that category.
Among those with a disability, people who have impaired vision and problems with manual dexterity have even lower rates of Internet access and are less likely to use a computer regularly than people with hearing and mobility problems. This difference holds in the aggregate, as well as across age groups.
Large
gaps also remain regarding Internet penetration rates among
households of different races and ethnic origins. Asian Americans
and Pacific Islanders have maintained the highest level of home
Internet access at 56.8%. Blacks and Hispanics, at the other end of
the spectrum, continue to experience the lowest household Internet
penetration rates at 23.5% and 23.6%, respectively.
Large gaps for Blacks and
Hispanics remain when measured against the national average Internet
penetration rate.
-- The divide between Internet access
rates for Black households and the national average rate was 18.0
percentage points in August 2000 (a 23.5% penetration rate for Black
households, compared to 41.5% for households nationally). That gap is
3.0 percentage points wider than the 15.0 percentage point gap that
existed in December 1998.
-- The Internet divide between
Hispanic households and the national average rate was 17.9 percentage
points in August 2000 (a 23.6% penetration rate for Hispanic
households, compared to 41.5% for households nationally). That gap is
4.3 percentage points wider than the 13.6 percentage point gap that
existed in December 1998.
-- With respect to individuals, while
about a third of the U.S. population uses the Internet at home, only
16.1% of Hispanics and 18.9% of Blacks use the Internet at home.
-- Differences in income and
education do not fully account for this facet of the digital divide.
Estimates of what Internet access rates for Blacks and Hispanic
households would have been if they had incomes and education levels
as high as the nation as a whole show that these two factors account
for about one-half of the differences.
With regard to computer
ownership, the divide appears to have stabilized, although it
remains large.
-- The August 2000 divide between
Black households and the national average rate with regard to
computer ownership was 18.4 percentage points (a 32.6% penetration
rate for Black households, compared to 51.0% for households
nationally). That gap is statistically no different from the gap that
existed in December1998.
-- Similarly, the 17.3 percentage point difference between the share of Hispanic households with a computer (33.7%) and the national average (51.%) did not register a statistically significant change from the December 1998 computer divide.
Individuals
50 years of age and older are among the least likely to be Internet
users. The Internet use rate for this group was only 29.6% in 2000.
However, individuals in this age group were almost three times as
likely to be Internet users if they were in the labor force than if
they were not.
Two-parent
households are nearly twice as likely to have Internet access as
single-parent households (60.6% for dual-parent, compared to 35.7%
for male-headed households and 30.0% for female-headed households).
In central cities, only 22.8% of female-headed households have
Internet access.
Even with broadband services, a
relatively new technology used by only 10.7% of online households,
there are disparities. Rural areas, for example, are now lagging
behind central cities and urban areas in broadband penetration at
7.3%, compared to 12.2% and 11.8%, respectively.
Americans are using the Internet
in the following ways:
E-mail
remains the Internet's 'killer application'-79.9% of Internet users
reported using e-mail.
Online
shopping and bill paying are seeing the fastest growth.
Low
income users were the most likely to report using the Internet to
look for jobs.
The August 2000 data show that
schools, libraries, and other public access points continue to serve
those groups that do not have access at home. For example, certain
groups are far more likely to use public libraries to access the
Internet, such as the unemployed, Blacks, and Asian Americans and
Pacific Islanders.
Internet access is no longer a luxury item, but a resource used by many. Overall, the findings in this report show that there has been tremendous progress in just 20 months, but much work remains to be done. Computer ownership and Internet access rates are rapidly rising nationwide and for almost all groups. Nonetheless, there are still sectors of Americans that are not adequately digitally connected. Until everyone has access to new technology tools, we must continue to take steps to expand access to these information resources.