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| Who's Going Online? |
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Internet December 2000 • Vol.4 Issue 4 Page(s) 24-27 in print issue |
Who's Going Online? Closing The Demographic Gaps | ||
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Using the Internet was once a luxury for only the wealthy and educated members of American society. Now, Web use is becoming a part of everyday life for the masses. It is creeping into the homes and offices of people of all demographics. It is breaking into the lifestyles of people in almost every country, age group, and socioeconomic level in the world. Although some demographic sections of the population are still underrepresented online, each year that passes, access to the Internet becomes easier to obtain.  Then & Now. Ten years ago, mostly only the smartest members of computer science departments at U.S. colleges logged on to Tim Berners-Lee's network of computers. Modems were extremely difficult to use, and most PCs did not have hard drives large enough to access the Internet and open Web sites. In addition to a computer, an analog modem needs a phone line to connect to the Internet. A decade ago, anyone who wanted to get wired first had to have a telephone. Many people in second- and third-world nations did not have phones, and some still don't. For example, only 10 of every 100 people in Mexico have telephones, according to a 2000 study by eMarketer, an Internet marketing research firm. Those who did have the hardware and connections necessary for Internet access still had to feel their way around the haphazard, English-only World Wide Web without the luxury of a portal site such as Yahoo!. Only those with much time and patience, and a good head for remembering URLs (universal resource locators; Web addresses), could do this. That left only a slim minority of the U.S. population able to surf the Web. Anyone who wanted to experience the Internet in the early ‘90s had to have a telephone, a high-end computer, and someone smart enough to connect a modem to the two. (The person also had to have the patience of Job.) These criteria weeded out all but the educated and prosperous computer gurus with above-average incomes and a thirst for technology. Today, this stereotype no longer holds true. With approximately half of the U.S. adult population online, the Internet's demographics are beginning to resemble the general population in the United States. Women, Asian-Americans, the uneducated, and children have flocked to the Web in droves lest they miss out on the Internet culture. "People want to expose themselves and their families to the Internet because of the fear of being left behind," says Claudine Thompson, an eMarketer analyst. The Web still shuts out some demographic groups. The impoverished, the elderly, and minority groups other than Asian-Americans have not found it as easy to join the Internet crowd as others have. General disinterest and monetary constraints have kept these people offline. These underrepresented groups are making a comeback, though. The Internet is sweeping into schools, businesses, and public places. Computer hardware and Internet service prices have decreased. Because of these factors, Internet demographic analysts predict an online population that nearly mirrors the general population within only a few years. How We Measured. The Internet community has no Census Bureau to gather statistics. Instead, a handful of private Internet research agencies do this. We gathered information from eight of these Internet research firms: The Computer Industry Almanac, eMarketer, Forrester Research, Global Reach, Jupiter Communications, Mediamark Research, Roper Starch Worldwide, and The Strategis Group. Because each company's sample and definition of the online public are different, the information from company to company sometimes is contradictory. For example, Jupiter Communications defines the online population as those people two years old and older that have used the Web within the past 30 days. The Strategis Group, on the other hand, defines the online population as those 18 years old and older who have ever logged on to the Internet. However, even though there are some differences and we found that some individual statistics vary between studies, our overall findings were consistent from company to company. We gathered information on both United States users and worldwide users, although we focus mainly on Americans. Our worldwide data serves to show how the online community in the United States compares to the online community worldwide. Education. One of the starkest distinctions between those people who are online and those offline is education. Web surfers are much more likely to have a college degree. "Educated individuals are more motivated to use the Internet to obtain information and communicate with each other," Thompson says. According to Mediamark, in 1999, 40% of American Web surfers had a college education, but only 22% of the general population did. In addition, 21% of Web users had only a high school education in 1999, but 34% of the general population had only a high school education. Newcomers to the Web seem to be undermining the unwritten education requirement for surfers, though. Many recent Web recruits are not college graduates. According to Roper Starch Worldwide, in 1999, only 30% of new surfers had at least a college diploma, and 37% of them have only a high school diploma. The education levels of Web surfers are definitely starting to mirror the general population's education levels. Roper Starch Worldwide reported that 37% of surfers new to the Internet in 1999 had only a high school diploma, and 37% of the general population also had only a high school diploma. In addition, 25% of new surfers in 1999 and 23% of the general population have attended some college classes. Income. Even though education is an important barrier, yearly income remains the biggest dividing line between the haves and the have-nots. The average American household brings in $22,000 a year less than the average Web surfer's household, according to a 1999 study from Mediamark Research. The same study indicated the median income for wired households last year was $66,000, but the median income for U.S. households in general was only $44,000. If the Internet has left anyone behind, it is definitely the impoverished. Those with incomes of more than $75,000 are 20 times more likely to be wired than those with lower incomes, according to a government study this year. In fact, according to Jupiter Communications, 15 million households generating $75,000-plus incomes will be online by the end of 2000. Jupiter Communications also reports this segment of the population will continue to be the largest online segment of the U.S. population until at least 2005. In turn, these economic differences affect the Web demographics of other segments of society. For example, elderly people and some minority groups have average incomes that are less than the incomes of other groups. This fact helps maintain disparities in race and age demographic groups for Internet usage. Fortunately, this disparity has begun to shrink. Youth from low-income households have begun accessing the Web from schools and public libraries. In addition, computer hardware and Internet service prices have gradually started to decline. "Cost will be less of a concern for lower income families as the costs of PCs and Internet access decrease," Thompson says. As a result, the median household income of surfers has begun to more closely resemble the general population. According to Roper Starch Worldwide, in 1998, the median income of Internet newcomers in the United States was $53,000. In 1999, the median income of newcomers was $41,250. Age. Although there is still a stark difference among income levels between online and offline Americans, age disparities have almost been erased. Every age group but the elderly seems to have jumped on the information superhighway. In 1999, the majority of those surfers were adults between the ages of 35 and 54, according to the Strategis Group. Although youth and elderly surfership is growing quickly, the adult majority probably won't go away any time soon. Youth. Today's young people may not even remember life without the Internet. Some people speculate the Internet has become more popular than the telephone for this age group. This may be in part because chat rooms and other online communications mediums do not require an invitation, like telephone conversations do. In addition, the wealth of information on the Web makes it a shoo-in as a popular resource for youth, whose temporary career is to get an education. Parents and teachers alike want those they look after to be as smart as possible, and what better way to do that than to introduce them to the Internet? Fifty-seven percent of parents who responded to a Roper Starch survey in 1999 said they went online, at least in part, to give their children Internet access. (NOTE: To give you an idea of how prevalent Internet use is in education, in 1999, 87% of college students were online, according to eMarketer. This makes them the most likely demographic to have Internet access. With wired dormitories, easy access to computer labs, and a thirst for knowledge, universities provide a digital playground for the young.) Youth are definitely taking the Web by storm. In 1999, 28.2% of Web surfers in America were between the ages of one and 17, although the same age group accounts for only 25.7% of the general population, according to eMarketer. In 1999, 13 million teens (aged 13 to 18) and 14 million children (aged two to 12) had Internet access in the United States, according to Jupiter Communications. That's a combined 32% of all the teens and children in the country. In 2005, Jupiter predicts 68% of all teens and children in the United States will have online access. Adults. In 1999, Mediamark Research estimated there were 198 million adults in the United States. Of this group, 98 million had Internet access, and most of these surfers were between the ages of 25 and 49. This segment of America has easy access to the Internet, in part, because more and more businesses are taking advantage of broadband. The Strategis Group estimates 60% of Web users accessed the Internet at work in 1999. Elderly. The elderly make up a small subset of the online population, especially when compared to their population in general. In 1999, those 55-years-old and older accounted for 11% of Web users in the United States, and 27% of the general population, according to Mediamark. Those elderly individuals without Internet access live without it for a number of reasons. Many are uncomfortable using computers, and some do not have enough money to splurge on a PC and an ISP (Internet service provider). "There is just a population of seniors who will probably never go online because of technophobia and lack of interest," Thompson says. The more time that goes by, the more elderly will log on to the Internet, though. Middleaged people make up a huge segment of the online population, and they probably will continue to use the Web after they retire. "Seniors have the highest online growth projection" in the coming years, Thompson says. By the end of 2000, Jupiter Communications predicts 5.6 million people older than 65 will be online. In addition, it predicts 17 million people age 50 to 64 will be online, even more than the number of wired college students (14 million). By 2005, Jupiter predicts 49 million people 50 years old and older will have Internet access. Even though that is more than half of the elderly population, it still leaves 36 million elderly without access, and less than half of the seniors older than 64. Gender. The majority of the elderly may seem destined to remain offline, but women have proven just the opposite. Women's place online was small until just recently. In 1996, 58% of Web surfers in the United States were adult men, according to Mediamark Research. Traditionally, adult men have been more likely to enroll in computer technology classes and take technology jobs. "Men were the ones who created the Internet, so content was geared around men," Thompson says. With less gender-bias in schools today, young women have become as interested in the Internet as young men. As those women grow up, they still access the Internet, making women's online presence bigger. "You'll see in the future that there will be more women online than men because so many teen-aged girls and girls that are children are online," Thompson says. The Strategis Group reports 60% of new users in the United States in 1999 were women. At the end of 1999, 37.1 million adult women in the country were online, according to eMarketer. That means the U.S. adult online population at the end of the year was 49% women. This doesn't quite close the gap between online and offline population genders, as 52% of the general population is women, but it comes close. eMarketer expects the number of adult female Web surfers will outnumber the number of male Internet users in the United States by 2002, in part because today's youth have grown up online and will probably continue to surf the Web as adults. In addition, more girls go online than boys. As a result, we'll probably see more feminine-centric sites and online content in the next few years. We may see more shopping sites, coupon downloading, and mothering content, for example. Race. As for race, American ethnic groups do not head for the Web in even percentages. Two-thirds of Asian-Americans go online today, but only one third of Hispanics and African-Americans do. By the end of 2000, eMarketer forecasts 74% of Asian-American households will have access to the Internet. Why are Asian-Americans leading the Internet spree? Some say it is because the Asian culture focuses on computers and technology. Others say it is because Asian-Americans have the highest median household income, even among Caucasians. Asian-Americans in the United States make an average of $47,000 a year; Caucasians make only $41,000, according to an eMarketer study in 2000. Asian-Americans also have more people working under one roof, which causes a higher household income and a greater chance of connecting to the Internet. In addition, Asians are the most likely to have a college education. Forty-two percent of Asian-Americans have gone to college, as opposed to only 11% of Hispanics, according to eMarketer. A slightly higher percentage of Hispanics have Internet access than African-Americans, according to the same eMarketer report. This could be because Hispanics in general are younger and therefore more enthused with technology. However, many African-Americans and Hispanics are too poor to own a PC so they must find access to it at a library or other public place. Jupiter Communications predicts that as minority income levels increase and the cost of a wired PC decrease, more and more African-Americans and Hispanics will go online. The company forecasts the number of African-American and Hispanic households that have Internet access will increase by at least 10% every year for the next five years. According to a Jupiter study this year, only 4.0 million Asian-Americans have Web access, but 6.6 million African-Americans and 6.9 million Hispanics have access. The Asian-Americans number is lower because even though this group may have the best chance of getting wired, their slim population in general makes their presence online scarce. Unfortunately, Native Americans do not have as easy of a time accessing the Internet. Thompson says that with only 22% of Native Americans online, they account for only 420,000 users. This means only 1% of Americans online are Native Americans. "There's a strong correlation between income, education, and access," Thompson says. "Native Americans, unfortunately, have the lowest median income and the lowest educational attainment levels among all races" in the United States. However, eMarketer's research shows Internet access is not totally determined by income. A child in a lower income Caucasian household in America is four times more likely to use the Internet than a child in a lower-income Hispanic household. "When you get to very low-income families, white families are more likely to be online just because there is more discussion about the Internet," Thompson says. In contrast, in families with household incomes greater than $90,000, the same percentage of African-American, Hispanic, and Caucasian families have online access. Even though income may dictate online access among the races, it isn't completely in control. Another barrier to Internet use among ethnic groups is language. Many of America's ethnic groups speak English at work or at school but want to speak another language at home. They want access to the Internet in another language as well. The 1990 U.S. Census says 32 million Americans speak English during the day but switch to another language at night. Global Reach estimates that in 1999, 14.5 million Americans preferred to access the Web in another language than English. Those who speak a language not prevalent online are not likely to join the online community. Geography. Non-English speaking countries did not start joining the online community until 1995 so they have a lot of catching up to do. Globally, the lower-income regions have sparse online access. Those born in impoverished third-world countries may never hear the word "Internet." According to the Computer Industry Almanac, only eight of every 1,000 people in the Middle East and Africa had access to the Internet in 1999, but 493 of every 1,000 Americans did. Of the 190 countries recognized by the U.S. State Department in 1999, 15 accounted for 82% of all Web traffic in the world, according to the Computer Industry Almanac. Despite this, the United States' dominance online is fading. The Computer Industry Almanac reports that in 1995, North Americans accounted for 69% of the online population at 31 million users. Today, North America accounts for less than half of the Web population with only 43% of the world's users. In 2005, the Computer Industry Almanac predicts that North America's 232 million users will account for only 30% of the world's online population. Western Europe's 214 million, in comparison, will contribute 28% of the world's users. Central and South America. In contrast, Central and South American Internet users will make up only 5% of the 372 million Web surfers by 2003, according to eMarketer 2000. The Internet infrastructure there is difficult because of the lack of phone lines, the great expense to implement it, and the lack of Spanish and Portuguese sites. With nearly two-dozen countries, three nations make up approximately 80% of Internet users in the region today. Even in those countries—Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico—Internet use is a novelty because of a lack of telephone lines. According to eMarketer report in 2000, Brazilians have only 11 telephones per 100 people, and Mexicans have only 10 phones per 100 people. Even by 2003, only 4.5% of Mexico's population will have Internet access, according to eMarketer. Asia. Japan and China are forging the way for online Asians. China, especially, seems to have the most potential for widespread Internet use in the near future. Even though it is the world's most populated country with more than a billion people, China had only 12 million Internet users in 1999, according to the Strategis Group. That's only one out of every 200 people. This gives China a lot of room to grow. Already, China is the fastest growing Internet market in Asia and will be one of the world's biggest markets within the next few years. It will grow at 66% yearly during the next five years, according to a Strategis Group study in 2000. "The Internet is more available to people of Chinese residency [in part] because of a relaxing of the political constraints in China," Thompson says. In addition, the recent availability of wireless Internet access has generated many Web users throughout the continent. "Wireless access is huge in Asia," Thompson says. Forty percent of the people in Japan own a mobile phone, and 40% of Japanese people have access to the Internet, according to an eMarketer report in 2000. Europe. European countries are not closing the digital divide as quickly as the United States is, but they seem to have less of a divide to close. Although European males outnumber European females online three to one, the average surfer's income closely resembles the average income of Europeans in general. In the United Kingdom, however, wired Britons are mostly upper and middle class. Even in Britain, though, the working class is starting to show up more and more online. According to Forrester Research, in 1998, 86% of British surfers were upper or middle class. In 2000, only 74% of British surfers are upper or middle class The British also have a high concentration of young Web surfers. Half of the youth in the United Kingdom aged 15 to 24 go online; this number is up from 30% last year according to a Forrester Research report in 2000. Typecasting The Internet. The Web's demographic information is crucial to online marketers and Web sites. They must know who is online if they want to be able to reach their target audiences. For example, you don't see many online advertisements or content for Native Americans because marketers know from Web demographic research that few Native Americans are online. "Why should I invest in an online business if I don't know that I'll be able to target my niche market?" Thompson asks.  by Michelle Nelson |
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