(Washington, February 26, 2006) \u2013 Rural Americans are less likely to log on to the internet at home with high-speed internet connections than people living in other parts of the country. By the end of 2005, 24% of adult rural Americans went online at home with high-speed internet connections compared with 39% of adults in urban and suburban areas.<\/p>\n\n
Though the gap remains sizable, growth in rural broadband adoption has been fast relative to urban and suburban areas in the past two years.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cRural broadband users are no different than home high-speed users elsewhere; they go online more often and do more online activities than dial-up users,\u201d said John B. Horrigan, Associate Director of the Pew Internet Project and principal author of the report. \u201cBut with a lower proportion of broadband users in rural America than elsewhere, the result is that rural Americans, in aggregate, have a more distant relationship with the internet than urban and suburban Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Overall rural internet penetration has risen quickly in recent years, with 62% of adult rural Americans at the end of 2005 with internet access, compared with 70% of adults in urban and suburban locales. This 8 percentage point gap is about half the rural-non-rural gap at the end of 2003. Coupled with fast growth in broadband adoption, the internet profile of rural America is slowly becoming more like the rest of the nation.<\/p>\n\n
In analysis of specific activities, there are several instances in which rural users are more likely than non-rural users to certain things online. Rural internet users are more likely to take classes for credit online, download screensavers, and download video games.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cFor certain things, like taking classes online, the internet is a real \u2018distance-killing\u2019 benefit for rural Americans,\u201d said Katherine Murray, research assistant for the project and co-author of the report.<\/p>\n\n
The Pew Internet Project\u2019s report on rural broadband adoption is based on the Project\u2019s combined September-December 2005 surveys of 5,262 Americans, 3,508 of whom were internet users. The Pew Internet Project is a non-profit, non-partisan initiative of the Pew Research Center that produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care, and civic\/political life. Support for the non-profit Pew Internet Project is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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