15% of Americans don't have Internet or cell phone

The report says that this 15% is mainly ‘older adults’, some of whom do have digital cameras and computers (but evidently no Internet connection to go with it), despite the easy and generally affordable availability of a plethora of gadgets and increasingly inexpensive Internet accounts. According to the report, US users can be split into three groups. There is an ‘elite’ group which makes up 31% of the population. They love gadgets, regularly use the Internet and can be split up further into subgroups.

8% of the 31% are ‘productivity enhancers’ who use the Internet for communications, 7% are ‘connectors’ who connect to people and digital content online, 8% are ‘omnivores’ who ‘voraciously’ participate online and 7% are ‘lackluster veterans’ who joined the online space early on but are less enthused about cell phones.

The second of the three groups makes up 20% of US users. It’s split into two sub-groups of 10% each, with ‘mobile centrics’ making up one group. They love cell phones, don’t use the Internet as much, and apparently has a large share of African Americans, so says the survey. The second group of 10% are ‘connected but hassled’ – they do go online, but aren’t terribly enamored of the process.

The last part of the three major groups interestingly makes up almost half of the US population at 49%. This group doesn’t own a lot of technology, with only 14% of the group having access to broadband at home. 8% of this group are ‘light but satisfied’ users who only access the technology when it suits them and is definitely not an everyday part of their lives, 15% are ‘indifferent’ and find connectivity annoying, while the remaining 15% are the group who don’t use cell phones and have no Internet connection.