- 15% of US adults (~37m people) don't use the internet = 20% of black Americans = 25% of Americans who make less than $30,000 a year = 25% of adults who live in rural areas = 30% of Americans who've never finished high school

If you've looked at Facebook recently, you'd see why, its the best way to stay connected with extended family members and see pictures of grandchildren.

The older generations went through many decades living without the internet. Do you really think that the internet is necessary (or even desirable) for them to live productive and happy lives?

I think that access to the internet is human right.

The internet is a tool that's the preferred method of communication among a growing number of people. Everyone who doesn't have access to it (by lack of technology, lack of education, etc) will slowly become more and more isolated from the rest of society as long as they can't access it. Even if someone chooses to never actually use the internet it is still important that they can if ever they change their mind.

Plus, a large number of old people say they don't need or want access because they don't know what they can use it for, or they're scared of looking stupid because they're not yet learned the technology required. That isn't the same as actually having no reason to use it. Most (like, 99.9999%) of people do have some reason to use it.

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Many people don't have the opportunity to learn how to use a computer. But having basic computer skills is a prerequisite to most entry-level, non-service jobs, and is becoming an increasingly important part of our social fabric.

I would agree with your statement as it applies to people who know about/how to use the internet, and simply don't care. But not for the portion of the population that can't afford the resources or education.

It's nothing like that, unless you belive society should act like, and have the same powers as, your parents.

To your other point: Not force, but encourage. I sure as hell don't want to pay the higher taxes needed for a medical system to take care of growing levels of obesity and the expensive procedures that are required for individuals whose health problems are directly correlated to poor nutritional choices.

It's any persons's choice whether or not to eat healthy, but I would argue that a truly mature individual would recognize his/her decision's impact on the greater society that he/she is a part of, and take social welfare into account when making a decision. This prescience, not age, is what truly separates a child from an adult.

Sure.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about the social factors that result in them choosing not, and the social impacts that that choice has.

> The benefits and cost of internet use are concentrated on the individual

There certainly are private costs and benefits; an underlying premise of the article -- which, to be fair, it seems to mostly assume rather than support, despite the fact that the support for that would be the answer to the question posed in the headline -- is that there are also social costs and benefits, and that they are important.

> so I'm not sure that we should expend a lot of effort to force them to "join" the internet if they don't want it.

None of the efforts discussed in the article, or its linked articles, is about efforts to force anyone to join the internet. So, while I'm sure most would agree with you, you seem to be beating a strawman.

Clickbait title, 4/10. Article doesn't even tell me directly why I should care besides "poverty and inequality" while a couple of paragraphs before stating "34 percent said they didn't find the Internet relevant to them".

Also, it's worth considering: maybe people just don't want to use the Internet. Plenty of libraries carry access, and plenty more will soon. What else can you do, at that point?

I intentionally didn't use the internet for a few years after college. I found it too distracting, and just had too much I wanted to do in the real world to waste my time.

I got a lot more done in my spare time, read real books, and had a lot more friends that I saw much more regularly than I do now.

I'm also not sure what's the point of reading 'real' books. The internet and technology in general has allowed me to read more books than I ever thought I would. From book discovery to reading convenience, the internet has made books more accessible to more people than than any other invention since the library.

Yes, it is merely a tool. But tools aren't really use-case neutral. Bombs and stethoscopes are obvious examples.

'Many more, 34 percent, said they didn't find the Internet relevant to them (...). Thirty-two percent said the Web was too difficult to use, according to Pew.'

'By contrast, there are real structural challenges (poverty and inequality) that are keeping younger, less socially mobile populations from becoming America's next great inventors or scientists or civil servants'

So 2/3rds of the responses say the problem is either that the web isn't relevant to them, or that it's too hard to use, but it's -poverty and inequality- that are the problem?

Then elsewhere, "Mostly they're poorer, older and undereducated, according to the Pew Research Center's latest figures." but then the article says "And it's not merely a matter of waiting for old fuddy-duddies who don't "get it" to die off: As the data show, older people have been among the quickest to adopt the Internet among the disconnected population." Doesn't that latter bit seem to imply that the 'older' part of the former will be solved with time? Or that the 'older' part isn't a problem at all? And what about that "younger, less socially mobile populations" bit they referenced (prior paragraph)?

I am trying to make sense of both 'why (I) should care' (is it that these people are wrong, and that the internet really -is- relevant to them, and/or that they just need better training on how to use it? The article also says 'But these remaining holdouts are likely to be the hardest to reach, because you can't just throw money at them', but the way to solve both those issues, and the remaining adjectives the Pew Research Center quote references ('poorer' and 'undereducated') is by education and addressing poverty, which requires throwing money at the problem), -and- what to do about it, and I'm not really finding it in the article.

Note, I'm -not- saying that this isn't a problem, or that I can't come up with reasons why it would be. I'm just saying that the article seems to be saying "37M Americans aren't online. That's a problem", and nothing more. Not why that's a problem, not who it affects and why(well, they cite survey responses, then seem to posit their own reasons that run counter to the survey), not how it affects society at large (or me individually, beyond the possibility that some of these people would become great if only they used the internet, something that they just take for granted), and not what to do about it.

This is a misleading way to restate the title of the article. It's misleading because this statement is not actually equivalent to "1/6 of Americans don't use the web" and actually obfuscates what might be an interesting topic - how internet usage is distributed geographically. I suspect that given a person has read this article on WaPo's website, nearly everyone that person ever meets is likely to be a user of the Internet.

Perhaps the author could have explored the dichotomy between places where Internet usage is essentially a daily necessity, and where it is functionally irrelevant. But I guess that might not fit the standard narrative for this sort of piece.

--edited to fix typos

The lede, as you say, is simply untrue. I'm pretty confident that the next 6 adults I meet have all sent an email.

Then there's the matter of providing Internet access to those who can't afford it.

And then there's the matter of those who simply don't see the Internet as relevant to their lives. Is this a problem or not? I dunno but the solution (if, indeed, one is needed) is going to be different from the prior case.

It makes sense: homeless people have no residence, so nowhere to keep a PC, but a budget smartphone and a low-end data plan isn't terribly expensive, and it's a useful investment, because having any kind of Internet connection at all is instrumental to getting a job and thus staying afloat and possibly making enough to get out of homelessness.

Most likely, it refers to exactly what it says: poor people presenting for certain services; younger, minority, and low-income Americans are more likely than the population at large to be "smartphone-dependent", that is, have a smartphone as their sole source of internet access. [0] While it is (by far) not a majority in any of those groups, its a significant number.

[0] see, e.g., http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/01/6-facts-abou...

And you know what they're missing? The opportunity to pull out their phone and pretend to be a part of the conversation. These people actually talk to you, and they listen, too.

Instead of seeing a problem where people don't use the Internet, we should be looking at what ubiquitous Internet connections are taking away from us.

In a larger context I see this as a problem of laying out infrastructure in general. Namely, the lion's share of the infrastructure dollars are put into the most economically wealthy areas. That's okay up to a point that the other parts of the country (rural) are also citizens of the nation and their part of the infrastructure (Internet included) is something out of the 1950s or worse. It's not so much about building an equivalent infrastructure (overbuilt and expensive) for the rural parts of America, but creating infrastructure that is compatible and scalable to the needs of those regions. In my opinion, leaving them with dial up or satellite Internet isn't an option.

If people want Internet access, they should have it, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into believing it will solve our greater problems, or that society will crumble without providing access to these last miles.

Part of the solution is building the infrastructure up to the same base standard everywhere. And the other part is trying to rebuild the previous physical distribution of the services (harder still since many Tea Party Republicans have taken over in rural governments which oppose welfare at any cost). So, it's not about making sure everyone is connected. It's making sure everyone has access to those services and goods we all consume.

And trust me, towns like Norton in Kansas aren't the exception but rather the norm in terms of how poorly serviced they are by their county and state governments.

I won't speak on the matter of private industries servicing the rural communities because I think that problem is far harder to solve because of local values and tastes (money exists out there, but not the demand).

I've heard the old adage of "we all need to use our phones less, that's the real problem with society, nobody talks to each other anymore", but it always seems like people are viewing the past with rose-tinted glasses when they say this. Just take a look at this meme: https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*U36hBj8i-C7J...

I have real, spontaneous conversations all the time. The phone can be a distraction, but so was my paperback copy of the Lord of the Rings when I was a kid. So was my school newspaper with a sudoku puzzle and a crossword that I would do instead of listening to a boring lecture in college. Sure, some people have a problem with the phone, but I don't think the phone is necessarily at fault for people distracting themselves.

http://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/filestorage/s1tuNpZALtb...

You know what was strange, yet so refreshing? All the building doors were open for anybody to walk in, even at 10 pm at night.

It's a shame that I was too young to appreciate the school.

I wonder how many fell into the bucket of "found a computer (not the web) too difficult to use." I'm quite serious.

My father, despite building TVs from Heathkits, is a high school dropout. My mother did graduate high school but is a bit of a luddite. For decades I would describe their personal computing experience as "clunky". My father understood the hardware (hell, HE was the one who upgraded our 486), but my mother is of the mindset that a computer is a complicated thing you're liable to "screw up" or "break".

She's now 60, he's 66. Previously their computer use was minimal, aside from my dad meticulously maintaining his media library, which mom chides him for ("he's going to break something"). Yet, I give her an iPad, and everything changes. She has no beef with it. She's not afraid of it. She uses it probably 4 to 6 hours a day, every day, managing what she cares about within a few select apps. Well, it was a few select apps. Last I looked at her iPad she has nearly 80. She also now has a Kindle, a FitBit, and an AppleTV.

Moreover, they live in an elderly community. Average age is mid 70s. Folks with landlines, and a surprising number that have never owned a computer. Ever. It was really odd to find out my mother was convincing people to get iPads, and she'd have my father go do a simple installation of an Apple Airport Extreme (since it can be managed via iOS), and giving folks a crash course.

You now have octogenarians, who never previously used a computer for the previous 80 years of their life, playing games with each other online, sending emails and IMs, looking for funny cat GIFs, streaming movies and TV shows on Netflix, filling their Instagram accounts with new photos, managing recipes, tracking their health/nutrition, connecting with grandkids on Facebook, browsing the web and shopping online, and so on and so forth. I think my folks have brought nearly twenty people into the 21st century in just three years, with my mother of all people leading the charge to get them on board.

Some have gone further. Some now have Kindles so they can read on the bus or at the doctor's office. Some have set-top boxes which they use to stream with. Though a computer? Zero. For the older generation, tablets don't seem to have the stigma a full-fledged personal computer does, and with only a little nudging and demonstration of how simple things can be, they're damn willing to see what they've been missing.

Absolutely. For years, I've been tech support for my dad. I think it's safe to say that he just never "got" PCs. Icons would move and it would cause confusion. I don't think he ever really grokked the concept of filesystems. In short, he was never really able to understand using a PC at a level where, if something happened that cause things to go off script, he could get what was happening and adapt. And he was genuinely uninterested in going deeper.

I won't say he's embraced the iPad I gave him to the same degree as your mother. I still need to pretty much set things up for him. But he's very comfortable reading the news, playing solitaire, and ordering from Amazon in a way that he never was with a PC.

(A Chromebook might have worked too but he can't really type very well and I suspect the fact that the iPad doesn't look like a PC is probably an element in his being more comfortable with it.)

I attempted that. For nearly two decades, to no avail. Regardless of whether it was Windows or Mac OS X.

I had brought over an iPad 2 to show them. They had iPod touches (an upgrade after I gave them Nanos many years earlier) and she played with it for a bit.

Next time I went over they had traded in their iPod touches (on Amazon) and each had iPad 2s.