Internet Penetration Slows from a Sprint to a Crawl

Data just released from MRI's area probability sample (which, unlike a phone-recruited sample, is not inherently skewed toward Internet-wired households) shows that Internet use is on a plateau.

There appears to be an entrenched group of non-connected adults and a diehard group of resistors that promise to hold out from using the Internet for the foreseeable future. So when it comes to actual growth of who we qualify as regular Internet users (any online or Internet usage within 30 days of the survey), what you see now is what you might get for a long time to come: among U.S. adults, only 63% are regular users of the Internet despite the fact that 79.5% of adults have access to the Internet at home, work, a school or library, or another place.

Who is Still Not On-Line? Among Internet non-users (those who have used neither the Internet nor an online service in the last 30 days) there are two functionally distinct groups. The first consists of "Internet resistors," who currently represent 16.5% of all U.S. adults. Resistors, who have access to the Internet but do not use it, have stubbornly represented 20% of all adults with Internet access since MRI began measuring access to the medium

The second group is the "unconnected," those with no access anywhere.

Both these groups have a high proportion of older people. While the median age for the general adult population is 43.9, resistors have a median age of 51.5, and the unconnected, 55.3. I suspect Europe shows a similar pattern. Dick Stroud: www.20plus30.com

Media Research US Internet data