42% of America not online.

Now that people can log on at work, at home, in coffee shops, in airports and even in public parks, the Internet seems like a pervasive, nearly seamless entity in most American lives.
Most, but certainly not all. Forty-two percent of Americans still don't use the Internet and the majority of them do not believe they ever will, according to a study released yesterday.
Missing out on the most popular movement of the 1990s didn't seem to bother the unwired survey respondents. More than half of nonusers said they don't want Internet access or don't need it, a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.

Found this article via Eric Olsen at Blogcritics, who says:

That figure seems relatively high, but look at it another way: 58% ARE online, and the most of the non-users are either old, stupid, poor, living in a shack in a holler, or some combination of the above.

Alternately, maybe what those non-users say about not actually needing the Internet is true? It's become a pretty much indispensible tool for me, yes, but I can appreciate that there are people in the world who don't have the same use or desire for it that I do...

posted by James Russell | 4:39 PM