It seems as though the internet is everywhere these days, with online advertising booming and an increasing number of traditional media outlets focusing on the web. But in reality, there’s still a fairly large chunk of Americans who are not online, and they don’t plan on going there anytime soon. According to a new study from Park Associates, a technology market research company in Dallas, 29 percent of U.S. households have no internet service provider and no plans to get one. Interestingly, it’s not cost that is holding them back. Just 22 percent cited economic concerns as the reason they’re offline. Instead, almost half of the internet refusers, 44 percent, said they are not online because they do not find anything on the web of interest. Another 17 percent do not go online because they aren’t sure how, and a small segment, 14 percent, said they don’t need it at home because they have it at work. Not all of these internet refusers are older people, either; nearly one-third are between ages 35-54. John Barrett, director of research at Park Associates, talks to Media Life about whether the internet refusers will become internet embracers, what would make the web more desirable, and whether we’ve reached an online saturation point (not yet).

What did you find most interesting or most surprising about this study?
 
The study actually is a project we have as an ongoing basis. About every 12 months or so we ask a broad range of questions, and one of the more noteworthy findings is there’s a lot of people out there who don’t really see a use for the internet, so that certainly jumped out.

What we’re seeing reflected in the data is if you live and die by the internet, most people you know are likely the same way, but there is a big segment of people out there who don’t yet know what the big deal is.
 

Have there been other studies that tracked why people do not have the internet, and how does yours compare?
 
I haven’t seen any other studies, but the way that we first approached it, we asked, “How much would you pay for internet access, if you would pay anything?” What we found, there were a lot of people who weren’t interested at any price, even if it was free.

So it’s not economic, it’s more the perception of the value. When we asked people why they aren’t interested, and money wasn’t the top answer, it was more that they didn’t know how to use it and things like that.
 

Have most of the people who do not have internet access ever used the internet (at work or at friends' houses)?
 
We asked people if they didn’t want the internet because they had access at work, and 14 percent said yes, so there was some of that. There was another study we did where we surveyed households that were moving, and asked if they were going to have internet access after they moved.

What we found was some people who currently had internet access today weren’t planning on having it after they moved, and it wasn’t just dial-up subscribers.

In some cases I think that’s probably economic, there were a number of single mothers with low incomes, so it may have been a cost-cutting measure, but the broader problem is it’s not always seen as a must-have.

Now that’s probably hard for you and I to believe, but there is a segment of the population who think it’s just okay, but not great, and they can live without it, so they do.
 

Many said that they are not interested in anything on the internet. Are they going by the web's reputation, or have they actually looked into what's available there and made their decision?
 
I think that it is more their impression than anything else. Households who say there’s nothing on the internet, they just believe there’s nothing online that would be of interest to them. If somebody were to communicate the value to them, I think they would quickly grasp it because it’s just so vast and there’s so much out there.
 

Are most of these internet refusers older (ages 60-plus)? What percent are young?
 
Of those who don’t subscribe, about 40 percent are over age 65, so definitely it’s skewed, and I think a lot of these houses, 77 percent, don’t have a computer. But we also had about 13 percent under the age of 34, and somewhere around 30 percent are 35-54, so it’s not just everyone’s grandfather, it’s a mixture of people.
 

Were you surprised at just how few cited cost as a concern? Has that number gone down as ISPs become cheaper?
 
Well, we weren’t surprised because we’ve asked the question before. But one of the interesting things is when we did this like 13 months ago, we have gone from 34 percent [who don’t see a need for internet] to 29 percent, so there has been some chipping away, some have become convinced of the value of the internet.
 

Is there anything that can change about the internet that will draw some of these internet refusers online?
 
Well, I think what’s going to make a difference, there’s a clearly a generational effect going on. Beyond that, the internet is still complicated. Anyone can sit down with a remote control and find what they want to watch on TV, but that’s not the case with the internet.

It’s not always as user-friendly, there can be 10,000 options, and time will ease that to a certain extent because people grow up with it, but it does need to become more friendly and entertaining. To really get some of the holdouts it has to be fun and entertaining.

 
Does this confirm that we have reached an internet saturation point?
 
Well, there’s still a little bit of room for growth because what’s happening is a shift from dial-up to broadband, and even dial-up is still getting new households because it’s cheaper. Each year we see that percentage squeeze a little and get some more households that are interested, but now I think it will be a slow process.

Last time around about 2 percent of households said they were going to upgrade, and that was the same this time, but in reality about twice that decided to get the internet over the last year.

It’s just hard to explain the internet to someone who hasn’t used it. You look at a lot of the commercials for internet access today, and they don’t necessarily say what the internet has to offer, although they are getting better now. I think something more along the lines of the old AOL, or even easier to use than that, is what some of these holdouts are looking for.