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11% of Americans don’t use the internet

thehustle.co

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Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#21
post #2

Old people can use the internet just fine if they want to; my 80-year-old mother happily uses it to buy all kinds of stuff, to pay her bills, to keep up with family on Facebook, etc.

For some older people the logic of the operating system is nearly incommunicable. They get keyboards, as they've typed. They can get a grip on a mouse. But after that they've got the face of a dog that's just been shown a new trick.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#22

I kinda wish we could pump those numbers up, esp for children on the internet. Thinking back to the 80s and 90s growing up, it sure seems like people were happier. But what do I know!?

I'm not sure whether people were happier or not, perhaps some people were happier because they lived in ignorance of what was happening around them... I know for me that is probablly true. I grew up in the 70s / 80s, in my family / community bubble I was unaware of bad things. Only later through the internet and people telling their stories on the internet that I realized my experience of life being pretty good for everyone I knew was completely wrong and quite a few people were having a miserable time... but I thought they were relatively happy.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#23
I wonder will the internet have matured (jumped the shark with excess commercialism, JS, ads etc) to the extent TV has that people start cord cutting the net.

Anecdotally the novelty is starting to wear thin with more than a few people I know who barely use anything beyond a chat service and a little shopping (probably at Amazon).

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#24

I wonder will the internet have matured (jumped the shark with excess commercialism, JS, ads etc) to the extent TV has that people start cord cutting the net. Anecdotally the novelty is starting to wear thin with more than a few people I know who barely use anything beyond a chat service and a little shopping (probably at Amazon).

People didn't start cutting the TV cord because of commercialism or ads or really anything about TV in particular; they cut because there was a substitute. Until there's another option as good for that chat and shopping, they'll keep their internet connection (even if only a cellular one).

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#25
post #2

Old people can use the internet just fine if they want to; my 80-year-old mother happily uses it to buy all kinds of stuff, to pay her bills, to keep up with family on Facebook, etc.

My mom is in her 70s and she has three laptops that she uses regularly - an old netbook that they use when they travel, a 13 inch laptop that she works with away from home and her main computer is a 17 inch that is easy on her eyes. She also has every kind of gadget and adapter known to man, a portable inkjet printer and two or three other working printers at home.

Not to mention my old Mac Mini I gave her after installing Windows 7 that she lets her students use when she tutors.

My dad has his own 17 inch Dell that he uses and he loves the Roku TV that I got him for Father’s Day.

Even worse, they already had DSL but they got cable internet when I stayed there for the summer and was working remotely. She kept both just in case one started acting flaky.

She uses Word and Publisher all of the time.

It helps that my mom is a retired high school teacher and we always had computers in the house since 1986.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#26
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember it ever being said about radio. TV certainly, but mainly it became a common theme after the arrival of Sky in UK. Now the kids had 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from, and even dedicated channels for effortless excess consumption. For the early part of our kid's lives there was only an hour or two of kids TV a day - between end of school and around 5:30pm in time for the evening news. Limiti…

Are you 70 years old? Radio was at the same stage as the internet in the 50s and 60s.

Grew up with kids TV in the 70s and 80s thanks :p

I have never once heard anyone criticise radio consumption that I can remember. Walkmans in the 80s, yes; games, yes; TV, definitely as mentioned. All of those have cropped up in the news more than a few times while they were topical.

Maybe UK radio got a different reaction to the US?

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#27
post #13

I kinda wish we could pump those numbers up, esp for children on the internet. Thinking back to the 80s and 90s growing up, it sure seems like people were happier. But what do I know!?

I think it's over-simplifying the issue to blame children for that. I mean, when I was 12 we built a little fort in the woods. My parents didn't mind letting us disappear with hammer, nails, saw and sandwiches for the weekend, as long as they knew we weren't going alone. Now there's places where the parent can get in trouble just for letting their kid walk to school. So the kids end up building their fort in minecraf…

The children shouldn't take any of the blame - that falls on the parents and society that have allowed things to come to this point.

We are faced with technology that is designed to be as addictive as possible, and unleashing it on the developing brains of our children without limits. Personally I think it's absolutely terrifying the effects that we'll be seeing down the road from this.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is the same thing they said about tv, before that radio, before that..

Right, could be a repeating pattern, but could also be a downward slope.

or just shifting around how people zonk out.

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#29
post #2

Old people can use the internet just fine if they want to; my 80-year-old mother happily uses it to buy all kinds of stuff, to pay her bills, to keep up with family on Facebook, etc.

Absolutely - this article doesn't claim otherwise. Disproportionately (by a large margin) they don't, but even so about two-thirds of the 65+ age group does use the internet. (See the age chart about halfway down the article.)

Re: 11% of Americans don’t use the internet

#30

I kinda wish we could pump those numbers up, esp for children on the internet. Thinking back to the 80s and 90s growing up, it sure seems like people were happier. But what do I know!?

Judging by the article, this number is only going to go down; the numbers are in the 2-3% range for everyone under 50, and are made up by a whopping 34% offline in the over-65 age bracket.

I would also be strongly suspicious of childhood nostalgia were I in your shoes.

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