Article: The Income Digital Divide: Trends and Predictions for Levels of Internet Use. Social Forces, February 2007.
Summary: Steven P. Martin and John P. Robinson examine the pace of Internet adoption. They find that while the number of people with internet access is increasing each year, the rate of increase is slowing. Importantly, they find the rate of internet adoption is slowing more dramatically for low-income citizens than their more affluent colleagues:
These differential rates of diffusion, combined with an overall slowing of the diffusion of Internet use since 2001, suggest that it may be 2009 before a majority of lowest income Americans use the Internet.
They also note that this trend doesn’t hold in many other countries. For example, the United Kingdom has similar levels of income inequality as the United States, yet has decreasing levels of inequality with respect to Internet access by income.
UPDATE: This Discovery was published in our Winter 2008 issue.
One Comment
nice discovery, jon. i wonder whether they are unduly optimistic — they seem to predict that most of the lowest-income americans will be using the internet in 2009.