http://www.rev2.org/2015/07/31/around-47-million-americans-do-not-use-the-internet-study-says/
In 2015, a study was conducted showing that about 15 per cent of Americans do not use the Internet. The study included 5,005 respondents with a margin of error of about 1.6 percentage points. That equates to approximately 47 million Americans. The factors that mostly affect whether people get online are age, ethnicity, and household income. Adults aged 65 and older came in at 39 percent who do not use the Internet. Adults 18 to 29 years old came it at only 3 percent.
While there may be some truth to this article, I don’t believe the numbers to be entirely accurate. The site mentions that the last numbers were taken from three surveys, although there were only about five thousand responses. This is a ridiculously low number to predict a wide scale hypothesis on the matter. I noticed there were no links to the research center or the studies talked about, and frankly I was annoyed that I had to go out of my way to do the writer’s work for him to get additional details. I knew there had to be more information than this, which was being left out.
ReplyDeleteA newer article from this past May includes more information about studies from this research center giving justification for a drop in internet usage due to privacy concerns. This was done from 41k respondents of a survey, which is a bit larger than the previously mentioned studies, but it still kind of low. (Sid, 2016)
In June, another article talked about the initial Pew Research studies (mentioned in the Rev2 article) as being from 2000 – not in 2015. In fact, the studies they have done subsequently have shown a huge decline in that original number of 48%. As of 2015, their research showed the percentage being as low as 15. This feels more accurate to me! There are a lot of factors that were not mentioned in the original article that could not be taken into consideration initially, which always throw up red flags. I’m glad to see that the number is more reasonable to this point in time. Over the last few years a lot of work has gone into trying to get people familiar with using the internet. It is something we can’t really avoid in most cases. (Peterson, 2016)
I find that this blog (Rev2) rubs me the wrong way – I reviewed it on my blog yesterday as a whole if you would like to check out my thoughts. (http://my20path.blogspot.ca/2016/08/i-chose-rev2-as-second-blog-to-review.html) While it isn’t such a big deal with opinion pieces, I do think the author has trouble creating quality fact based work.
Jessica (APUS Classmate)
Sources:
Peterson, A. (2016). Why a staggering number of Americans have stopped using the Internet the way they used to. Retrieved August 13, 2016, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/05/13/new-government-data-shows-a-staggering-number-of-americans-have-stopped-basic-online-activities/
Sid. (2016). 15% of Americans don't use the internet. Retrieved August 13, 2016, from http://www.amsnews.tv/?p=5856