Meet the 38 Million Americans Who Don’t Use the Internet

38 Million Americans Don't Use The Internet

You can easily make the case that the internet is arguably the most important and influential invention within the last 100 years. While you can trace back the early roots of the internet to the 1960’s, it wasn’t really until the 1990’s that it became a commercial service used by the general public. The internet has given us so much over the last few years, and without it, we would be severely handicapped as a species. Sure, the internet is great for finding funny cat videos or aimlessly browsing Reddit, but it has done so much more. Never before in the history of the human race have we ever been so interconnected and united thanks to the internet. We have instant access to news and information and can communicate immediately with anyone from around the world. You’d be hard pressed to go to any major city in the world and not find free internet access somewhere. It seems that pretty much everyone has a cell phone or a computer now, and the internet has been hard-grained into our modern society. However even still, as beneficial and amazing as the internet is, many people still don’t use it at all. Typically the people that are not on the internet simply do not have the means to access it. These are people that are living in under-developed parts of the world and what not, like rural Afghanistan, for example. Now that doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but something that would, would be the fact that some 38 million Americans don’t use the internet at all.

Now obviously people in North Korea aren’t using the internet, but here in America? There are actually more people in the United States that don’t use the internet than the entire population of North Korea. Researchers and analysts over at the Pew Center conducted a survey about internet use in the United States, and they found that 15% of Americans (about 38 million) simply do not use the internet at all. Flabbergasted by their findings, they conducted a follow up survey to find out who exactly these people are, and the results are very interesting.

The Pew Center looked at adults over the age of 18 who don’t use the internet, and then compiled the information collected into a series of demographics so we can get a better understand of who these people are. The first part of the survey Pew asked people what was the main reason for not using the internet. Around 10% answered that it was “too difficult”, some 13% responded saying they don’t own a computer, about 8% exclaimed that they were too old to learn, and around 6% said that it was too expensive, among other responses. However the most disturbing response Pew found was that 21% said they “simply have no interest”, which was the majority response.

Really? Unlimited access to all the information, music, and arts in the world doesn’t interest you? Not even the slightest bit? Sure we can get too wrapped up into who liked our Instagram picture, but even still it’s borderline disturbing to think the reason the majority of the people who don’t use the internet simply have no interest in what it has to offer. I find it challenging to imagine someone who isn’t interested in direct communication with billions of humans around the world. But they are evidently out there.

After Pew found out the reasons as to why these Americans weren’t on the internet, they then took a look at their demographics. In terms of gender, it was pretty much split evenly between men and women. of those that reported ethnicity, 14% of these Americans identified as white, 15% identified an black, and 24% identified as hispanic.

The least surprising results are when Pew asked about the age of these individuals. Over 61% were over the age of 50, while those over the age of 65 made up the majority. Okay so it’s older Americans that don’t use the internet. But even still, my grandparents both use the internet, and even my 85-year-old grandfather has a Facebook page. So there’s really no excuse here. Shockingly some 2% of people who don’t use the internet are between the ages of 18 and 29.

Pew then looked at the education levels of these 38 million Americans, how much they made, and where they lived. 41% of the Americans that don’t use the internet never graduated from high school, while another 22% never pursued higher education after high school. Only around 4% of these non-users actually earned a college degree. Pew also found that the vast majority made less than $50,000 per year, most of which had a household income that was less than $30,000 per year. Additionally the majority of these Americans identified as living in a rural area.

The information found by Pew is certainly very interesting, and it paints a good picture as too who these non-internet using Americans are. So you’re average American that does not use the internet is a apparently a 60-year old who never earned a high-school diploma who makes less than $30,000 per year that lives in rural Kansas. I wonder if they even know that the internet could help them finally graduate from high school? Probably not. Oh well, back to Twitter it is.

Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Written by Sebastian Hensiek

From Philadelphia, Sebastian is a fan of music, writing, art, and entertainment.