Author Archives: Grant Blank

Almost half of people with disabilities don’t use the Internet: but why?

While disabilities, such as health-related problems, are a continuing source of digital exclusion, OxIS 2013 shows that over half (51%) of British people with a disability use the Internet. This is a rise of 15 percentage points from 2007. Unfortunately, 51% is still considerably less than the 84% of non-disabled respondents who use the Internet, leaving a major digital divide for the disabled.

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Disabled people are much more likely to not use the Internet.

However, this is a broad question and many disabilities would not influence ability to use computers or the Internet. When we ask respondents specifically whether their disability limits their ability to use computers we get a different result: for people who say the disability limits their use of a computer or the Internet, there is no difference between the percentage of users versus non-users. This suggests that disability is not a major issue for Internet use.

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There is no difference between Internet users and non-users when we control for whether their disability limits their use of a computer.

How likely are ex- and non-users to get online in the future?

There is a steadily declining likelihood that ex-users will get Internet access in the next year. In 2013 29% of ex-users were planning access compared to 52% in 2005. However, in 2013 ex-users are still much more likely to plan to get Internet access than non-users (29% vs 9%). This indicates that the challenge of getting the last fifth of the population online is growing every year, as the people who were most positively disposed to become users have already done so. The offline population seems to be growing less interested in Internet access. This suggests that organizations like the Tinder Foundation and Go ON UK will find it increasingly difficult to persuade non-users to go online.

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Use of online government services is increasing, but still presents a problem for many

Use of the Internet has been positively associated with involvement in politics and government. With respect to governmental activity, public engagement with digital government is continuing to evolve, and more and more services are moving towards easier online provision. Moreover, the entire population is potentially in need of one or more governmental services that are increasingly digital. Therefore, we expect that over time, an increasing proportion of the public will use government services provided online, what is increasingly called ‘digital government’ or ‘e-government’ service delivery.

In the UK, as in many other nations, the take up of digital government has been slow, although incremental advances have been made year on year. There are many reasons for this, but it is a particularly difficult arena for services that are not accessed often, sometimes once a year or less, and that involve tens of thousands of individuals interacting with thousands of services at all levels of government. In contrast, banking services can involve millions accessing only a few services, such as looking at their account balance.

In 2013, there was a significant advance from 2011 in the take-up of digital government services in the UK. 65% of Internet users said they had used at least one of a set of government information and service delivery applications in the past year. This represents a continuing increase since 2005 when we began to track uptake of electronic service delivery by government. It is also a substantial increase from 2011, when 57% said they used at least one service. Whether the rise in up-take since 2011 indicates having reached a critical mass that will enable growth to continue at a faster pace will be a key issue to look for in the 2015 survey.

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What digital government services are being taken-up by Internet users? We asked users to indicate whether or not they used each of a number of services over the past year. Our list was not comprehensive, but was indicative of the range of services available. The most general observation is that there was an increase in every service we listed. There seems to have been a strong increase over 2009 and 2011 in every aspect of digital government. More users are getting information about government online, and more people are paying for services and fines online. The most dramatic increase is in paying a central government tax, licence fee or car tax disc online, where the proportion more than doubled from 2011. This means that transactional services, where the payoff of digital government could be great, are succeeding, as well as more information-centred services, such as getting information about your local politician. This suggests that not only are users adapting to digital government services, but also that government service delivery is improving in ways that make it easier and more efficient for individuals to complete transactions online.

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Ex-users and Reasons for Not Using the Internet: Life Stage and Occupation

The reasons why ex-users stop using the Internet change over time. The graph below tells an interesting story. In 2005 the majority, 40% of ex-users said that they are just not interested in using the Internet. This reason was followed by about 35% saying they have no longer a computer available and that the Internet is too expensive for them. In 2011 we observed a very different pattern, with over 60% of ex-users indicating the Internet is too expensive for them, and over 50% saying they no longer have a computer available. Again, we see that nowadays ex-use of the Internet is related to physical constraints more than it used to be in the past. Other reasons such as worrying about privacy and viruses or not figuring out how the Internet works, stayed stable over time at around 15%.

Reasons ex-users stopped using the Internet

Next, we are interested whether different ex-users have diverse reasons for not using the Internet anymore. So, we look at reasons by life stage.

 

Reasons ex-users stopped using the Internet by lifestage

In addition to life stage we compare reasons for stop using the Internet by occupation.  Ex-users with managerial and professional occupation are distinct by stating that they no longer use the Internet since they do not have access to a computer and worry about privacy issues related to the Internet use. On the other hand ex-users in clerical professions most often provide next three reasons: they are not interested in Internet use, the Internet is too expensive and they no longer have a computer available. Lastly, blue collars state similar reasons but in a different order.

Reasons ex-users stopped using the Internet by occupation

Reasons ex-users stopped using the Internet by occupation

Non- and Ex-users: Reasons for Not Using the Internet

After showing some of the characteristics of non- and ex-users of the Internet, this post focuses on reasons why they say they do not use the Internet. We will investigate what prevents people from trying out the Internet or stop using it in the next couple of blog posts.

We present non- and ex-users with a list of possible reasons for staying offline and ask them which were important for them. In the graph below we plot all percentage responses for the reasons for not using the Internet. The first conclusion that that the reasons for never trying the Internet are very different from the reasons for halting use. There are four main circumstances ex-users indicate as reasons to stop using the Internet. Over 60% claimed that the usage of the Internet is too expensive, and about a half of them said that they no longer have a computer through which they would assess the Internet. Four out of ten reported that they have stopped using the Internet as they have moved house, or moved/left a job or school where the connection was available. The same proportion of ex-users said they are just not interested in using the Internet. All other reasons, such as the Internet is not for people like me, it is time consuming and not useful, as well as privacy concerns were decisive reasons for around 15% of ex-users.

By contrast, a vast majority (83%) of non-users said that they are just not interested in using the Internet. The other two leading reasons for staying offline are not having a computer available and not knowing how to use the Internet. About 50% of non-users also believe that the Internet is not for people like them or for people of their age. This is so similar to not being interested that we combined those responses in the Report. About 50% also say the Internet is too expensive and difficult to use. Overall, non-users indicate a broader range of reasons for not using the Internet than ex-users. The latter are more likely to report physical constraints preventing them from using the Internet, whereas non-users lack the interest and skills to go online. These are important insights for understanding the dimensions of the divide between online and offline populations.

Reasons ex-users and non-users do not use the Internet

Respondents were also asked which reason was the most important. The graph below confirms that non-users are mostly not interested in using the Internet – 62% indicate the lack of interest and lack of usefulness as the decisive factors. On the contrary, for 38% of ex-users the most important factor was the expense and a further 27% said they did not have a computer or an Internet connection. 26% state they are not interested in using the Internet. Once again, we can conclude that perceptions about the Internet are the biggest constraint in getting people online for the first time, while those who have used the Internet before lack financial and physical resources to continue doing so.

Most important reason non-users and ex-users do not use the Internet

 

Non- and Ex-users of the Internet: Life stage, Education and Income

The previous blog post showed that gender is not powerful in explaining who are non- and ex-users of the Internet, whereas age is strongly related to non-use. In this post we examine life stage, education and income.

First, there are significant differences among non- and ex-users in terms of life stage. The largest proportion (59%) of non-users is among retired people. This is consistent with the age distribution of Internet use, discussed in the previous post, where we showed that the majority of people over 65 years old have never used the Internet. There is a slightly larger proportion of non-users among unemployed (18%) compared to employed (10%) Britons. The situation is reversed for ex-users. 11% of unemployed people have stopped using the Internet, compared to 5% and 2% of the retired and employed population respectively. A high proportion of ex-users among unemployed people may mean that when they lose their job people may also lose their Internet access. This is worrying and more could be done to help unemployed ex-users regain access to the Internet. Essentially all students are online.

Non-users and Ex-users of the Internet by lifestage

Plotting use of the Internet against education, the most striking finding is in the “no qualifications” category: 61% of British population without any qualifications have never used the Internet. By contrast, the proportion of non-users is very similar, around 13%, among people with secondary or further education, and the lowest among those with higher education. These numbers may mean that schools play a very important role in getting people on the Internet for the first time and that more highly educated people find valuable uses for the Internet . Interestingly, education does not seem to be related to ex-use of the Internet. More or less similar proportions, around 5%, of people with different education levels have stopped using the Internet. Along with age, education is not an important factor in terminating the Internet use.

Non-users and Ex-users of the Internet by education

Non-users and Ex-users of the Internet by education

The final graph shows the distribution of non- and ex-users by income. There is a clear pattern: income is positively related to Internet use and negatively related to non-use. 45% of people with households incomes of less than £12,500 per year have not used the Internet before. The same is true for almost every third person on the next income category. On the right side of the income distribution more than 90% of people use the Internet. Ex-users follow the same pattern as non-users but not as strongly. The two lowest income levels groups have the highest proportions of ex-users: 12% and 6% respectively.

Non-user and ex-users of the Internet by income

Non-user and ex-users of the Internet by income

Until now we have demonstrated that age and income importantly determines people’s likelihood to try use the Internet and that the most important factors of ex-use are most probably unemployment and low income levels. In the coming blog posts we will complement our analysis with non- and ex-users’ reasons for not using the Internet.

Non- and Ex-users of the Internet: Gender and Age

In this post we explore some basic demographic characteristics of non- and ex-users of the Internet. The first graph shows that the proportions of non- and ex-users among men and women are almost identical. The proportion of non- and ex-users is only for 3 percentage points bigger among female population. This difference is in the margin of error and suggests that gender is not a significant factor of the Internet adoption.

Non-Users and Ex-users of the Internet by gender

However, age displays a pattern very different from gender. In the graph below we plot the proportion of users, ex-users and non-users across age categories. The graph tells two stories. As expected, the proportion of non-users increases with age. There are no non-users of the Internet among youngsters, whereas only 4% to10% of the population aged between 18- to 44-years are not using the Internet. This proportion rises to 16% in the following age group. Then the curve rises steeply, indicating that non-use of the Internet is strongly present among older British population. By and large people who have never used the Internet tend to be elderly, above 65 years old. Yet, policy makers should probably focus on the middle-aged (45 to 64 years) population which might be more interested in starting to use the Internet if appropriate policies were implemented.

By contrast, the proportion of ex-users is stunningly stable across all age groups: there are about 5% of people who stopped using the Internet in every age group across British population. Ex-users are almost equally likely to be young or old. Whatever processes generate ex-use, they operate across the entire age range. This is very unusual, because almost everything that has to do with the Internet is related to age. But being an ex-user is not age-related. Furthermore, contrary to much conventional wisdom the category with the highest proportion of ex-users is young: 18 to 24-year-olds (7%).

Non-users and Ex-users of the Internet by age

Non-users and Ex-users of the Internet by age

The contrast between non-users and ex-users indicates that the mechanisms that cause a respondent to be an ex-user or a non-user are very different. While age is an important factor determining who adopts the use of the Internet, it does not have the same power in explaining who stops using it. Because of this very different policies will be required to effectively encourage use among these two groups.

 

Civic by default – when opting in is not a choice

OII Research Fellow Rebecca Eynon and Anne Geniets discuss the topical issue of the UK’s digital inclusion strategy, discussed at last week’s OII workshop on low and discontinued Internet use by young people in Britain.


On 23 March 2012, the Oxford Internet Institute saw stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds, attending our workshop ‘On the Periphery? Low and Discontinued Internet use by Young People in Britain: Drivers, Impacts and Policies’. One of the key themes that emerged over the course of the day was that digital inclusion cannot be addressed without tackling social exclusion, for many of those who are currently not online are also socially excluded. <hr />

The Government’s recent digital inclusion campaigns seem at first sight to recognise this need. For example, the UK ICT Strategy paper pledges that “The Government will work to make citizen-focused transactional services ‘digital by default’ where appropriate using Directgov as the single domain for citizens to access public services and government information. For those for whom digital channels are less accessible (for example, some older or disadvantaged people) the Government will enable a network of ‘assisted digital’ service providers, such as Post Offices, UK online centres and other local service providers” (section 45, UK ICT Strategy 2011).

‘By default’ strategies are at the core of a concept called ‘libertarian paternalism’, which initially was advanced and popularized by two American academics, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, and since has been adopted by a number of governments around the world. In the UK, it has inspired the creation of the Cabinet Office’s Behavioural Insight Team, commonly known in Whitehall as the ‘Nudge Unit’.

The idea behind the libertarian paternalism concept is that the government gently encourages citizens to act in socially beneficial ways, without infringing their freedom or liberty, and through these nudges it improves economic welfare and well being for the whole of society. Governments nudge by reorganizing the context in which citizens make certain decisions, a strategy also referred to as ‘choice architecture’. To quote a common example, it may not be at the forefront of learner drivers’ mind to sign up for the organ donor register, but by asking learner drivers whether they would like to join the register at the end of their application for a provisional driving licence, many learner drivers may choose to opt in. In other words, while the learner drivers are by default not enrolled as organ donors, they are gently ‘nudged’ by authorities to join the organ donors register and to help tackle the nationwide shortage of organ donations.

To apply libertarian paternalism to issues where citizens have the freedom to make a choice is sensible. Libertarian paternalism after all already has proven to be beneficial in a number of aspects of civic life. But by applying the concept to issues where citizens do not have a choice because of restricted resources, by default strategies risk becoming a tool for social exclusion. This poses a democratic problem.

This, our research suggests, is a current threat for young people who are high users of government services but infrequent users of the Internet.

The benefits of moving government services online are clear. Older citizens who do not go online often do not do so due to a range of factors, such as lack of skills, lack of interest or absence of an Internet connection. While these reasons are complex, there is often, at least to some extent, some element of a digital choice. Thus, for many people within this group, digital by default strategies that encourage citizens to use the government’s online services may work well. For example, through the provision of support at UK online centres and initiatives such as Go On Give an Hour in the context of the UK Race Online 2012 campaign.

However, for younger citizens, who have used the Internet at school and have grown up with the Internet as a part of normal life, not using the Internet or using the Internet in limited ways is more likely to be linked to issues such as the costs of going online. The majority of this group do not need to be nudged into using the Internet.

Preliminary findings of our ‘Lapsed Use of the Internet Amongst Young People in the UK’ project confirm this hypothesis. They suggest that particularly young people in transition often find it difficult to get access to the Internet. These are young people who just left school and don’t have Internet access at home, young people who are in transitory homes or homeless, young people who have just arrived in the UK as a refugee and young people who are working part-time only, or are unemployed and therefore cannot afford to access the Internet.

“Sometimes the computers are full, so I go to the British library and can check my email and can see whether I have received something, because at the moment I am looking for jobs. If I am waiting for something important or if I have applied for a job…I have to keep checking my Internet and if I don’t have access to the Internet I really worry.” [Alexandra, 20]

“They actually cut the funding. And this is why places like the youth club here and Connexions that used to be open are no longer open, and the one-stop shop in L, all got their fundings cut, and they closed down. And, they, I’m surprised this place [youth club] is open, you know. But what can you do? Nothing, you would have nothing. You would seriously have nothing…” [Giorgio, 23]

Young people in transition are particularly at risk of being both socially and digitally excluded. Because of the restriction of their resources, accessing the Internet for them is not typically a matter of choice. This is why an ICT strategy based on choice architecture is not going to work for the majority of young people who are currently ex-users or non-users of the Internet. Instead, there is a danger that digital by default strategies doubly disadvantage those young people without Internet access, by aggravating and slowing down their enrolment process for government services and job programmes.

Therefore, strategies need to be developed that target young ex- and non-users of the Internet specifically, to ensure that these young people who are already part of an ‘Internet by default generation’ do not slip through the net, both technologically and socially.

On Non-users and Ex-users of Internet

This blog post is the first of a series on people who have never used the Internet before (non-users) and people who have had used the Internet in the past but do not use it now (ex-users). As the Internet plays increasingly significant role in our everyday lives – with major parts of the society operating online – it is very important to understand the characteristics of the people excluded from the online worlds. Nowadays staying offline may have severe implications for an individual in terms of limiting access to services, information, debates and activities that may be more accessible online or are sometimes available only online.

The graph below shows that over one quarter of the British population did not use the Internet in 2011: 23% had never used the Internet and 5% had used it in the past but do not use it anymore. The proportion of non-users has been steadily declining from 35% of the population in 2003 to 23% in 2011. So over a period of eight years 12% of the population migrated from the non-user to Internet user category. Interestingly, the proportion of ex-users remained stable, at around 5% of the population.

nonex_use

We asked non- and ex-users how likely they are to gain access to the Internet in the future. As shown below more ex-users (35%) than non-user (10%) are confident that they will go online soon. For both non- and ex-users the likelihood of getting Internet access has dropped from 2005 to 2011. One possible explanation is that non- and ex-users who were most likely to migrate online have done so and the remaining population of non-users is increasingly composed of those least likely to use the Internet. It is notable that almost two-thirds of ex-users say they are not likely to get access in the future.

In his review of the literature on the digital divide van Dijk (2006) identifies five inequalities referred to by the digital divide: technological, immaterial, material, social and educational. People who stay offline do not have access to the same technological opportunities; life chances and freedom; economic, social and cultural capital and resources; positions, power and participation opportunities; and development of skills and capabilities. The scope of these issues underlines the importance of the Internet. In order to invest in the right resources and encourage people to join the Internet, one has to understand the characteristics of non- and ex-users and the reasons why they are not or have stopped using it. Our goal is to shed light on these questions in this series of blog posts.

Reference:

van Dijk, J. (2006). Digital divide research, achievements and shortcomings. Poetics, 34: 221- 235.

OxIS featured in “Stata News”

The Oxford Internet Survey was featured in the current issue of the Stata News. Stata News goes out to around 100,000 users of the statistical software package Stata. Stata was particularly interested in the fact that all the graphics in the 2011 Report were produced using Stata.

By using Stata we were able to create publication-ready graphics directly from data. Doing the graphs this way gave us the ability to use a standard template that automatically created the graphs according to a single consistent style. Furthermore, by creating the graphs from data directly we never had to re-enter any numbers. Not only does this avoid a tedious, error-prone data-entry task, it also means that we were never concerned with checking the numbers. Finally, since this process was so much simpler and easier we could create and look at many more graphs before selecting the most interesting ones to be included in the Report.

All the graphs were created using scripts (meaning command files: Stata do-files). For the next wave of OxIS we can change the dataset name and some of the labels and rerun the same scripts. We hope that this will simplify the task of creating the Report from the 2013 data.

Altogether Stata has served OxIS very well. We are delighted that Stata News spreads the word about OxIS to Stata users.

You can read the article about OxIS at: http://www.stata.com/news/statanews.27.1.pdf

The Stata News is published quarterly by Stata Corp. The article about OxIS appears in the first issue of 2012, volume 27, number 1.