But the 50-year-old high-school educated homeless man I talk to several times a week is totally plugged in. Youtube for camping and workout videos; current on movies and music. Knows all the hotspots around town. If he isn't exercising or foraging, he's watching something on his phone or pad.
I'm betting a lot of rural folks have better internet than those in Silicon Valley. Given I live and work among the poor, rural, and forgotten and the internet (Facebook, Netflix) is being used all the time, I doubt the geography aspect.
I do want to see this studies raw questions/ data gathering.
There are definitely rural areas that have excellent internet service available. I grew up in a small town that happened to be a test market for Time Warner cable internet (RoadRunner) when it came out in the 1990s.
However, there's rural and there's rural. Some people live places where the cable company would have to run miles of copper just to service a single house. If you're living so far out and also poor, you probably can't afford to tether to your cell phone either.
So, I have lots of family that live in rural areas. Rural being defined as can't see the neighbor's house + unpaved roads off of roads named with only three numbers (ie, take 765 to 321, turn left on 997, keep an eye out for the fence on the left) + no sewage + 1+hr commutes to Walmart or Dollar General.
Their internet availability is satellite. They have phone lines, but are too far out for DSL. Some have cable, so they can get like 3mb for $80/mo or something. I can get edge service on my cell sometimes, but it's basically unusable.
You're probably thinking more of the exurbs. Houses with like 1-5 acres of land off of a county highway or something.
You're probably thinking more of the exurbs. Houses with like 1-5 acres of land off of a county highway or something.
No, I'm thinking of North Dakota. We seem to have really good internet in a lot of places. The rural electric cooperatives have made real efforts at laying fiber.
Just to add that most retired/old people are also "poor" when it comes to income. Especially folks with only social security. It is no coincidence that those two groups(65+/-$30K) are the biggest.
Almost all of the stats in the study reflect the composition of the 65+ US population.
That's not terribly surprising.