Internet Access Is Almost Everywhere

Do you feel like your kids know more about the Internet than you do? It could be true. A new survey found that 30 million U.S. children under the age of 18 are now online, and a whopping 73 percent of kids between the ages of 12 and 17 have online access.

The survey, by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, also said that the number of U.S. citizens using the Internet grew by 16 million in the second half of 2000, meaning the number of adults with access to the Internet in the U.S. is 104 million, or 56 percent of the U.S. adult population.

According to the survey, more woman and minorities made their way online in the second half of the year, with woman accounting for 50.6 percent of U.S. Internet population. The African American online population saw a 22 percent gain in the second half of 2000, with more African American woman beginning to make use of the Internet. In particular, 45 percent of African American woman had Internet access by the end of the year, compared with 34 percent in the first half of 2000, Pew says.

The largest disparity in the online population occurs in the areas of age and income, Pew says. Seventy-five percent of U.S. citizens between the ages of 18 and 29 were online while only 15 percent of people age 65 or older were on the Internet.

Furthermore, 82 percent of families with a household income of over $75,000 per year had Internet access by the end of last year, while 38 percent of households with incomes below $30,000 per year were online, Pew says. The study pointed out that a greater percentage of lower-income households gained access to the Internet in the second half of 2000, up from 28 percent by June 2000.

By comparison, 98 percent of U.S. households own a television, and 94 percent have a telephone, Pew says.

The conclusions were derived from data gathered in two surveys. A total of 4606 adults over the age of 18 were polled between May 2 and June 30, 2000, of which 2277 were Internet users, and between November 22 and December 21, 3493 people were polled, 2038 of which were Internet users, Pew said. The rate of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points, Pew says. Those polled were located through a random digit sample of telephone numbers, selected from various telephone exchanges in the continental U.S.

The survey also found that 82 percent of people with undergraduate or graduate degrees are online, and on a "typical" day, 58 million Americans use the Internet.