Find out about the individuals who reject the the internet.

Meet the People Who Don't Go Online
As many as 11% of Americans don’t go online at any time, for any reason. The offline population is much bigger than it was previously thought to be, and are reportedly doing just fine without the World Wide Web.

Meet Miss A. She wakes up at 7:15 every morning, reads her daily newspaper with breakfast, and then takes a leisurely walk around her neighborhood. Her experience is a little unsettling: everyone is on their phone.

She says children being dropped off at school get out of their parents’ cars without looking up or saying goodbye. Their eyes are glued to their devices. The parents don’t get upset, however, because they’re doing the very same thing...

The Population Firmly Maintaining Its Offline Status
For most of us, particularly those who enjoy a spot of online betting every so often, or whose jobs did not exist before the internet did, it is almost impossible to imagine our lives before now. For better or for worse, we are dependent on the digital universe, using it on a daily basis for a variety of reasons.

The offline population has declined steeply, with today’s percentage a steep drop down form the 48% reported in 2000. The group is made up of less educated, lower income, more rural, older people who remain committed to barring the adoption of new technology.

Mr B: 58-years Old, from Rural Pennsylvania
Mr B was so concerned about his privacy that this interview was conducted by messages being relayed through his friend, Miss C.

Mr B began work on his parents’ farm at only five-years old, and, when he finished school at 18, he set off an his lifelong career as an operator for bulldozers.

He describes himself as old-fashioned, and has lived in the same place since he was a child, taking advantage of rustic pursuits like farming, training animals, hunting, and long walks in the woods. He has never used the internet, and intends to keep off it for the future, too.

A Sense of Foreboding
Mr B reports that he never got on board with the idea of the internet, and that, when it first started becoming available, he actually predicted that it would be the cause of society’s downfall.

He reports that he has never had the slightest interest in it, and that he firmly believes that it has made people lazy, dependent on anything except using their own brains.

Part of this attitude is probably as a result of the incredibly negative experiences he has had with the technology.

Mr B’s first wife, for example, made use of the ‘net to have affairs, and his second opened up a credit card online, signed Mr B’s name to her bills electronically, and racked up more that US$10 000 in debt. All of this possible because Mr B doesn't ever go online.

Aside from these experiences however, Mr B is simply not interested in the digital world, and it is certainly perceived as one that is morally corrupt.

While a case can certainly be made for this argument, our interconnectedness and access to information has had many positive consequences as well, and it remains to be seen how many Mr Bs, or Miss As, we will have in the future.