New data is due out this week and while it will show those numbers falling, it will still be a significant proportion of the population – and probably a lot more than most of the rest of us digital denizens would expect.
Those unconnected are the most vulnerable portion of our compatriots.
Myth-busting
It’s all too easy to generalise that these people are mostly elderly, members of some generation that will never master the internet. However, there is a swathe of people who cannot afford broadband or the equipment that goes with it.
Helen Milner told MPs that more than a third of the four million people in the UK who had never used the internet were under the age of 65. Around two-thirds of the seven million who researchers found were unable to open an app on a mobile were similarly of an age to be still in the workforce.
There are others who have lived their lives without the internet up until now and just don’t believe they need it. Or they just don’t trust it. It will also include many people who have health problems, both physical and mental that make them more in need of the benefits that digital inclusion can bring, but less capable of participating.
For many of these people, television is the lifeline. With record viewing figures – 27 million watching Boris Johnson’s most recent address on a strategy to end lockdown – broadcasters are playing their role in bridging the stubborn divide. Not just for its entertainment value and to keep us all from family civil war or from losing our sense of humour. But also for bringing us news and information, and making us feel we are not alone in the face of this danger.
Those of us who work in television and radio – free or affordable to the most vulnerable in society – should not ignore this digital participation gap. The people who have little or no connection to the internet have, as a result, little or no connection to society as expressed via the internet. But what they do have, most likely, is access to a television set or a radio.