Data Central Blog

Affordability is a core part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All initiative. We know that access to an Internet connection isn’t true access unless everyone can afford that connection. During Digital Inclusion Week, we are analyzing NTIA’s Internet Use Survey data that highlight disparities in Internet adoption. Our previous blog discussed some of the barriers facing the 24 million households that do not use the Internet at home.

Internet access means access to education, healthcare, jobs, and entertainment. It’s essential to full participation in our modern economy. Still, NTIA data show that about one in five U.S. households are not connected to the Internet at home.

President Biden’s Internet for All initiative is working to connect everyone in America to affordable, reliable high-speed Internet. With NTIA spearheading the initiative, we know it’s important to make data-driven solutions and assess who is not online and what barriers are keeping them unconnected.

This week is Digital Inclusion Week, and we are analyzing NTIA’s Internet Use Survey data on the disparities around Internet adoption, including why households are offline, the cost households are willing to pay to get connected, and what we’re doing to address the digital divide.

While a majority – 58% – of the 24 million offline households express no interest or need to be online, there is also a large proportion who say they can’t afford home Internet service (18%). Regardless of their stated reasons for non-use, offline households have significantly lower incomes than their online counterparts. This suggests that even after overcoming other barriers, cost may be an additional challenge for many offline households.

The security and privacy landscape has continued to evolve since NTIA first asked about it in our 2015 Internet Use Survey. High-profile data breaches and debates about the role of technology in people’s lives have kept concerns about privacy and security in the forefront. The spread of emerging technologies such as smart home devices and always-on voice assistants, as well as business models predicated on the collection, use, and sale of personal information, means these concerns have taken on increased urgency.

As NTIA will be exploring in our listening sessions this week, these concerns are especially acute for those in marginalized or underserved communities. These communities can sometimes face higher risks of harm from the loss of privacy or misuse of data.

In 2019, most Internet-using households in America expressed concerns regarding digital privacy, according to data from the NTIA Internet Use Survey. While fewer households had concerns about digital privacy and security and deterred online activities in 2015 vs. 2017, rates have held steady from 2017 to 2019. In 2019, 73 percent of Internet-using households in 2019 had significant concerns about online privacy and security risks, and 35 percent said such worries led them to hold back from some online activities (see Figure 1).

For more than a quarter-century, NTIA’s Internet Use Survey has provided the public with information about the digital divide and how Americans’ use of computers and the Internet has grown and changed over time.

Since 1994, NTIA has partnered with the Census Bureau 15 times to field this vital data collection to inform policymakers and enable important research. Our most recent survey went out in November 2019, and we’re pleased to be working with the Census Bureau again to conduct the next NTIA Internet Use Survey in November 2021. This will be a great opportunity to understand how computer and Internet use in America changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to create better informed solutions that improve the state of digital equity in America, NTIA is always looking for ways to improve the questions asked in our survey. As technologies and our understanding of policy challenges evolve, we try to keep our survey evolving as well, while also preserving the ability to track changes over time.

Today, we are soliciting public comment on our draft questionnaire. Feedback on this draft will build on the comments we received last summer, when NTIA, for the first time ever, published a Request for Comments asking researchers, advocates, and other interested members of the public to tell us how to improve the NTIA Internet Use Survey.

Telemedicine and telehealth-related activities are on the rise, according to NTIA’s November 2019 Internet Use Survey, which found that more households are using the Internet to communicate with health professionals, access health records, and research health information.

Because the survey was conducted prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, it provides an important baseline for understanding the prevalence of telehealth usage among American households and the importance of Internet access for essential services.

The proportion of households that accessed health or health insurance records online grew from 30 percent in 2017 to 34 percent in 2019 (see Figure 1). Households communicating with a doctor or other health professional online grew by two percentage points, and households that researched health information online grew by one percentage point between 2017 and 2019.

This summer, NTIA reported initial results from our latest NTIA Internet Use Survey, which showed that Americans were increasingly using a larger and more varied range of devices. But with dozens of topics covered in the survey, there is a lot more we can learn from this data collection, including questions about online activities such as checking email, watching videos and participating in the sharing economy.

Two online activities of particular importance right now are remote work and taking online classes. Our data show that approximately 51 million Americans reported using the Internet to work remotely in 2019, nearly a third of the estimated 160 million Americans who were employed in November. A smaller number, about 43 million Americans, said they used the Internet to take classes or complete job training last year. That represents about 20 percent of Internet users ages 15 or older.

Although our survey was conducted in November 2019, a few months before the outbreak of the coronavirus, the results can be helpful to understanding the extent to which Americans were prepared to work and learn online.

Working Remotely

For more than 25 years, NTIA has been surveying the American public about its computer and Internet use, in partnership with the Census Bureau.

Our most recent NTIA Internet Use Survey went into the field in November 2019, with more than 50 questions administered to approximately 50,000 households across the United States. The survey covers a range of topics related to digital inclusion and similar issues, with the goal of informing Internet policy analysis and development that can help to bridge the digital divide.

In anticipation of conducting future surveys, NTIA is seeking recommendations from the public about how we can improve our survey and make it as relevant as possible. Are there questions we previously asked that should be changed or deleted? Are there any questions that we should be adding? We want to hear from you.

After digesting your comments, NTIA will draft a revised survey instrument to use in the future. Beginning this fall, experts from the Census Bureau will conduct cognitive testing of our draft survey, which will help us learn what questions may cause confusion or elicit inaccurate responses. Census will recommend changes aimed at addressing any problems uncovered during this process.

Today, NTIA is releasing results of its latest NTIA Internet Use Survey, which show that nearly 4 out of 5 Americans were using the Internet by November 2019, and are increasingly using a larger and more varied range of devices. Even as seniors and other demographic groups reported encouraging increases in Internet use, the data show that a persistent digital divide still exists based on income levels, age groups, and race, among other factors.

This is the fifteenth edition of the survey—the product of a partnership between NTIA and the U.S. Census Bureau that spans a quarter century—and it includes over 50 detailed questions about computer and Internet use administered to approximately 50,000 households across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The NTIA Internet Use Survey is a vital data source for policymakers, researchers, and advocates seeking to understand critical questions related to Internet use and help bridge the digital divide.

We’re excited to celebrate the quarter-century birthday of our partnership with the Census Bureau on a survey about consumer use of computers and the Internet! Last month, across all fifty states and the District of Columbia, Census interviewers talked to 52,000 households for this comprehensive survey, which collects data every two years on who goes online, what computing devices and technologies people use, and what challenges prevent some Americans from taking full advantage of the digital age.

The NTIA Internet Use Survey is unique among national household surveys in this field due to its combination of in-depth questions, a large sample size that enables demographic and state-by-state estimates, and use of Census Bureau expertise and resources.

The Census Bureau administers the NTIA Internet Use Survey as a supplement to its Current Population Survey (CPS), which serves as a source of some of our nation’s official labor force statistics, including the monthly national unemployment rate. The Census Bureau has been conducting the CPS every month since the 1940s. The CPS survey will help NTIA’s researchers gain insights on a range of demographic and labor force information in each of the surveyed households, in addition to the information yielded from the supplemental Internet Use Survey questions.

Internet use among Hispanic Americans has continued to grow, according to NTIA data, narrowing a racial disparity that has existed since NTIA began tracking adoption through its Internet Use Surveys in 1998.

The proportion of Hispanic Americans using the Internet has risen from 61 percent in 2013 and 66 percent in 2015 to 72 percent in 2017, NTIA data show.

Although this is still less than the 80 percent of non-Hispanic Whites online in 2017, the gap has begun to narrow. Internet usage rates for Hispanics are now similar to African Americans, who have also experienced gains in Internet use in recent years (see Figure 1).