15% Of Americans Don’t Have Internet. 5% Think It’s Irrelevant.

Five percent of Americans have resisted the siren song of cat listicles and hashtags. Specifically, they think the Internet is “irrelevant,” to use words of Pew, which just released a report on the demographic of Americans without Internet.

In total, 15% of Americans don’t go online for a variety of reasons. By far the largest reason is that it’s a “waste of time”. A smaller slice of Americans can’t get online for a few reasons related to the digital divide: the Internet is too expensive, it’s inaccessible in their area, or it’s too complicated. The delightful chart below shows all the glorious reasons why some Americans live off the grid:

About half (44%) of these offliners qualify for Medicare. 20% are from rural areas and 41% have no high school diploma:

The very same percentage of older users do cheat a little. 44% of offliners have asked (probably their granddaughter) to use the Internet on their behalf”

But, perhaps the gem of the report is that 3% of Americans still hear fax-machine music to go online. Yes, a sizable slice of Netizens still use dial-up.

You can view the full report here.