In 1995, only about one in 10 adults in the U.S. were going
online. As of August 2011, the U.S. internet population includes
78% of adults (and 95% of teenagers). Certain aspects of the
current internet population still strongly resemble the state of
internet adoption in 2000, when one of Pew Internet’s first
reports found that minorities, adults living in households with
lower incomes, and seniors were less likely than others to be
online. “Those who do not use the Internet often do not feel any
need to try it, some are wary of the technology, and others are
unhappy about what they hear about the online world,” the report
concluded. As of 2011, internet use remains strongly correlated
with age, education, and household income, which are the
strongest positive predictors of internet use among any of the
demographic differences we studied. Yet while gaps in internet
adoption persist, some have narrowed in the past decade—as shown
in the table below. The internet access gap closest to
disappearing is that betwe