According to a recent study conducted by the American Consumer Institute, age is the clear factor in varying usage of IT services, VoIP has gained in popularity among low-income households, there is no link between IT use and race, and rural consumers tend to use dial-up instead of broadband services. Each of these findings are already well known, but the study provides some more stats: 20 percent of households with children report the youngest cell phone subscriber to be 12 years old, and 10 percent of the youngest cell phone users are of elementary school age. About 22 percent of low income households (those earning less than $25,000) have used VoIP services. Also, besides the greater likelihood of dial up for rural Internet users, there exists no other significant differences between rural households and urban ones when it comes to IT use.
For more on the Digital Divide study:
- see this press release