Older people use of the internet stats

Hi All 
The latest UK survey shows that:  In 2008, 16.46 million UK households
had Internet access. This
represented 65 per cent of households and an increase of 1.23 million
households since 2007. The other 34% of households had no internet
connection because - 'they didn't need it'.These estimates are derived
from the 2008 National Statistics Omnibus survey.
Those on the downside of the average reflect: regional differences,
education, gender and age. 
The age stats group all +65 which is not very helpful but 70% of these
had never used the internet (down from 82% in 2006), but still double
the 'average' figure.
See: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/iahi0808.pdf
The Eurostat figures for 2007 at
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-QA-07-023/EN/KS-QA-
07-023-EN.PDF compare EU countries and age 55-74  - this shows that in
many countries there is substantially lower take up currently when
compared to younger groups.
Obviously things are changing quite fast so it is useful to see new
figures. I tried for the USA stats figures but couldn't find a
comparable and recent status survey tool although what I saw suggested
that education was a significant factor in take up at all ages.
I need to find more demographics to help with user profiling in my new
project on 'sustainable autonomy in ageing'. If anyone has the chance to
influence government level surveys to give us a better picture of the
internet use by older people - then please let me know! It would help if
they broke down the age groups better and looked at (some of) the
compounding variables.
Suzette

Received on Monday, 20 October 2008 11:04:02 UTC