Study: As more use broadband, digital divide widens
By Sam Diaz
Mercury News
John Hong has been high-speed surfing the Web for more than three years, first as a subscriber of ISDN services and now as a subscriber of DSL.
Back then, Hong, a San Jose computer programmer, was among an elite group that wasn't dialing into the Web over 56k speeds. Today, he's just another face in the broadband crowd.
A report issued this week by the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., found that 21 percent of all Internet users in the United States today have a home-based broadband connection, a jump from 6 percent who were surfing at high speeds in early 2000.
The report, dubbed ``The Broadband Difference,'' found that the high rate of adoption is allowing more Americans to take advantage of all the Internet has to offer -- from e-mail and online banking to video streaming and interactive gaming.
But broadband adoption also is widening the digital divide among computer users based on economics, gender and educational levels. Broadband users, the report found, mostly are early adopters who have upgraded their dial-up connections.
``Typical of early Internet adopters, broadband users are wealthier, better educated and more likely to be men than dial-up users,'' the report read.
And that leads to better Internet experiences -- and opportunities -- for the broadband user.
While both broadband and dial-up users are using e-mail, instant messaging and visiting chat rooms at comparable rates, surfers with broadband connections are downloading music and video clips, performing online financial transactions and creating Web sites of their own far more often than their dial-up counterparts.
``Pick any Internet activity and a broadband user is more likely to do it on a given day than a dial-up user,'' the report read. ``A broadband connection increases the likelihood that a high-speed user will download files or music, create content, or share files online three to five times, compared with dial-up users. Broadband users are similarly much more likely than dial-up users to conduct transactions online. This probably reflects the higher incomes of broadband users.''
Hong, the San Jose programmer, said he can't imagine going back to the slow speeds of a dial-up connection.
``It would be really frustrating because there are so many graphics now'' on Web pages, he said. ``With DSL, those pages come up right away. People are too busy these days to have to wait.''
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