The Auricle

by Derek Morrison, 8 July 2009

A good starting point before reading the OII’s report The Internet in Britain 2009 (PDF, 2MB) would be Seb Schmoller’s commentary in his recent fornightly mailing. I commented on the government’s Digital Britain report referred to in the OII’s study in my recent Digital Britain report published – read carefully posting (Auricle 18 and 21 June 2009) but in this posting I wanted to focus on one particular aspect of The Internet in Britain 2009, i.e. “ex-users” of the internet.

There are references to said “ex-users” in pages 8, 11, 27, 31-32, 34, 36-37, 43, 45-46, 48-59, 61, 63-64, 66-68, and 71. But I’m particularly interested in ex-users by choice and to try and identify why people become ex-users. On page 31 we begin to find some possible explanations for the latter, i.e. ex-users perceive proportionately less satisfactory information searching experiences and trust the internet as an information source less than tv or radio (also see p34). On page 32 it would appear that ex-users appear to have less trust in people they communicate with over the internet than users. Page 36 indicates that ex-users perceive a higher level of information overload and information irrelevancy from the internet than users and perceived other people, telephone calls and noise as a more signficant distractor than users. But ex-users also seem to perceive they were losing out in some ways, e.g. p43 indicated that ex-users perceive some degree of social isolation in comparision to users and on pp45-46 we find ex-users seem to be taking less advantage of employment or money saving opportunities offered by internet use. Section V Digital Inclusion Policy: Understanding the Disengaged is particuarly interesting with regard to ex-users with references in pp49-59). What seems to come over is that people have to perceive a reason for engaging with what the internet has to offer, with employment and study figuring high. p50 is interesting because it indicates that the retired may (at least initially) have curiosity and social contact drivers but on pp 51-53 the costs of access (including unemployment), lack of access, lack of interest, or lack of skills seem to underpin their ex-user status. p54 indicates that the profile of internet use by ex-users when they had access to the internet was considerably different to users. The question is whether this was a temperament, social disadvantage or skills issue? Page 55 indicates that a signficant proportion of ex-users feel they have lost out and that social and economic disadvantage is a signficant factor.

It’s a bit unfortunate that, at times, report aggregates ex-user and non-user data, e.g. p68 Attitudes towards technology I would have liked to have isolated difference in attitude between non-users and ex-users. I think that studying those who have opted out of internet use, for whatever reason, could make as valuable a contribution to the knowledge base as much as commited enthusiasts – perhaps more. But, overall, like Seb Schmoller, I think The Internet in Britain 2009 is otherwise a reference model of clarity.

A useful summary of the findings of The Internet in Britain 2009 report is provided by the 22 June 2009 OII press release Attitudes Towards the Internet in Britain (PDF, 40kb).