Ipsos-Reid Asks Why More People Are Not Online
Only around 6% of the world’s six billion citizens currently use the internet and even in technologically developed countries such as the US, Canada and Sweden, only around a third of people who could use the internet choose to, according to research from Ipsos-Reid.
“The answer is twofold”, he says. “In the developed world, a substantial number of people who could very easily go online have decided not to. They see no compelling reason to be on the web. The hype and the promise of the internet clearly hasn’t impressed them ÂÂ- not yet, at least. For others in nascent, less developed markets, the cost of accessing the internet competes with the cost for basic necessities and access availability is very limited outside of urban areas.”
As part of its global research program, Ipsos-Reid talked to people in 30 countries who are not on the Net and who say they have no plans to be. The most frequently mentioned reasons for staying offline are “have no need for the internet” (40%); “no computer” (33%); “no interest” (25%); “donÂÂ’t know how to use it” (16%); “cost” (12%) and “no time” (8%).
“Those growing up on the internet will one day make up the bulk of the population and there will be very few non-users down the road”, Cruikshank predicts. “But that’s maybe an entire generation away in many developing markets. In the meantime, you still have a massive group … of potential users who have the means yet are still not convinced of the web’s merits.”