ONS 2018 Study – 4.5 Million UK Adults Have Never Used the Internet

The Office for National Statistics has today published their latest annual 2018 Internet Access report, which reveals that 8.4% (4.5 million) of UK adults have never used the Internet and that’s down from 9% (4.8 million) last year. Sadly issues of age and disability continue to be the key barriers to adoption.

Overall 90% of adults in the United Kingdom were classed as “recent internet users” (up from 89% in 2017), which rises to 99% when only looking at “adults” aged 16-34 years and this drops to 44% for those aged 75+ (the latter is still a big improvement from 20% of those aged 75+ in 2011).

Meanwhile 20% of disabled adults had never used the internet in 2018, down from 22% in 2017. Some extreme disabilities can of course make internet use either very difficult or nearly impossible.

Out of the 4.5 million adults who had never used the internet in 2018, more than half (2.6 million) were aged 75+. Meanwhile not all of those aged 75+ who had used the internet will continue to make use of the service once they’ve given it a go (this is the age group with the highest proportion of lapsed internet users). Lapsed internet use by adults aged 75+ rose from 3.9% in 2011 to 7.3% in 2017, before falling to 5.7% in 2018.

In addition, recent internet use by retired adults has increased by almost 25 percentage points since 2011, to 64% in 2018. Similarly, recent internet use by adults who were classed “economically inactive” has increased by 18 percentage points over this period to 88%.

Internet use also fluctuates depending upon which region of the United Kingdom you hail from. As you’d expect the more urban regions come top and thus London remains the region with the highest proportion of recent internet users (93%), while Northern Ireland had the lowest proportion at 86% (up from 84% last year); although N.Ireland also had the largest increase in recent use since 2011, reflecting a rise of 17 percentage points.

Elsewhere the proportion of men who had recently used the internet in 2018 was higher than women, at 91% and 89% respectively (compared with 82% and 77% respectively in 2011). However the gender gap only really widens for those adults aged 75+, where 51% of men and 38% of women were considered to be recent internet users.

As we always say at this point, not everybody wants to use the internet and nobody should force it on to those who don’t want or need it, but equally support should always exist for those who wish to give it a try. Admittedly this philosophy will become increasing strained as the Government continues to extend its digital-by-default strategy.

The fact that fixed line superfast broadband ISP or mobile broadband networks aren’t yet able to reach every corner of the UK is another issue, although the proposed 10Mbps USO may help to tackle that.