A major internet researcher moves calmly from simple facts about the internet to a discussion about the key issue that will make or break its future.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [May 9, 2005]

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is one of the best sources of information about the internet on the internet—and it's free. Among the reports offered for free on the project's website is the presentation by Lee Rainie, its project director, to the Freedom To Connect Conference, available here in .pdf format.

Rainie's presentation starts with the effects of any improvement in information technology, changes such as the reduction of the power of information gatekeepers as amateurs and dissidents find new ways to raise their voices and challenge authority. "Of course, I'm citing the work of the wonderful historian Elizabeth Eisenstein in her study of the impact of the printing press in fifteenth and sixteenth century Europe," he adds.

The latest change in the internet revolution is broadband, now used by just over 50 percent of home users in the U.S., about 59 million Americans. But not everybody uses the internet. The biggest surprise in his surveys is that a fifth of those who do not use the internet live in a household that has an internet connection. Pew has also found that 17 percent of those who do not use the internet did so at one time.

At ISP-Planet, we believe that there is still a small backlash against the internet among those who did not understand what it was in the first place, expected too much of it due to all the hype, and left it disappointed.

Rainie identifies nine clear statistical digital divides:

1. Young people are more likely to use the internet
2. Employment: college students and those employed full time are more likely to use the internet
3. Education: college graduates are more likely to use the internet
4. Income level: those in households earning over $75,000 are more likely to use the internet
5. Disability: only 38 percent of those who are disabled use the internet while 70 percent of those without disabilities use the internet—a continuing challenge
6. Language: English rules
7. Geography: rural users lag in use
8. Parental status: parents are more likely to use the internet
9. Race and ethnicity: minorities lag in use

The only gap that has closed is the gender gap. Whereas at first more males than females used the internet, today women are slightly more likely than men to be online.

Internet users have better access to information, to networks from hobby groups to political groups to dating websites and college courses. People learn, grow, and love on the internet.

Internet users are also exposed to spam and spyware, and heavy internet users can be under more stress than those who use the internet less.

As society balances hopes and fears, we face a challenge voiced 25 years ago by the political scientist Ithiel de Sola Pool in Technologies of Freedom:

"The onus is on us to determine whether free societies in the twenty-first century will conduct electronic communication under the conditions of freedom established for the domain of print through centuries of struggle, or whether that great achievement will become lost in a confusion about the new technologies."

Speaking for himself, Rainie adds, "this gathering is one of those all-too-rare events where those confusions about new technologies can be beaten back and where essential first principles can be made to shine."

Of course, with the internet, the discussion can continue long after the speech is done.

— End