More than 40% of American adults now report being online “almost constantly”

The world has only been online for a short period of time, relatively speaking. Only 2% of people had used the internet in 1997; by 2019, this figure had ballooned to 53%; and, in 2023, it had jumped again to 67%.

Naturally, as internet connectivity has become nearly ubiquitous around the globe, so have the people it connects come to rely on it more relentlessly.

On Monday, the Pew Research Center published a survey conducted across 24 countries worldwide that found a median of 28% of adults reporting being online constantly... and 9% reporting not using it at all. 

The data showed greater shares of online adults in wealthier nations, with the lowest reported internet use in India and the three sub-Saharan African nations surveyed.

Nippon(line)

Of all the countries surveyed, Japan had the highest rates of frequent internet usage, with 56% of adults overall reporting being almost constantly online. However, among wealthy countries, Japan also saw the greatest share of people reportedly abstaining from the internet entirely (14%).

Considering that the country is so technologically advanced — shattering the internet speed record this summer at 4 million times the average US broadband speed — a number of these could well be “neo-Luddites” opting for a simpler, less digitally governed life.

But looking at other highly developed countries with large shares of internet nonusers, like Italy and Hungary, these also tended to have rapidly aging populations. For Japan, then, it’s perhaps more likely that members of its graying demographic are simply continuing their lives as they’ve largely known it: without the internet.