A new ICM survey from BT, which was conducted online with 2,103 UK adults during September 2011, has revealed that 20% of respondents have never sent an email. By contrast 40% of those already using the internet have used email to reconnect with someone and 53% got back in touch using Facebook.

The new research from BT’s Get IT Together campaign has been conducted alongside this week's 'Give an Hour' event (here), which challenges the 30 million daily internet users in the UK to give up an hour of their time in order to help those who aren’t yet online.

BT's Get IT Together Survey Highlights

* 47% of those who had lost touch with a close family member said they would like to reconnect with them.

* 9% wanted to get back in touch with a former flame.

* 54% of those surveyed said they had lost contact with someone because they didn’t have time to keep in touch.

* 46% reported losing touch because their friend or family member had moved to another part of the country.

* 42% of those who had lost touch said distance prevented them reconnecting.

BT's Get IT Together campaign aims to help get another 100,000 people online for the first time by the end of 2012. The ISP also claims to be encouraging and enabling at least 10,000 people to become 'Digital Champions' whom can help and inspire others to get online.


So far BT claims to have invested money, time and in-kind contributions worth £27.6 million into programmes that seek to boost the uptake of internet access and related digital services. The operator's actual target is to invest at least 1% of their underlying pre-tax profits into community programmes and sustainability.