Fox report shows millions never been online

In a recent report that was commissioned by the government’s Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha Fox, it was suggested that millions of people in the UK have never used the internet.

Words such as Internet, online, and broadband have become everyday language to many of us, as so many of us now rely on broadband connections and internet access to get online for both business and pleasure. For many people life without the Internet can be extremely difficult to imagine, but one recent report has shown that millions of adults in the UK have actually never used the Internet at all.

The report was commissioned by the government Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha Fox, and the data suggested that more than ten million adults in the UK had never been online, which will shock the millions of people that have come to rely on the Internet for both pleasure and work. The figures equate to seventeen percent of adults never having been online, and it is thought that for at least four percent of these the reasons are financial or connecting to their housing circumstances.

The report also highlighted how many of those that did not or could not use the Internet were losing out on hundreds of pounds in savings each year, which can be made because of the number of deals that are available online with a wide range of products and services. It is also easier to shop around online and cheaper to pay bills, which results in a further loss of savings for those excluded from the Internet.

Fox stated: “I think it is really important to show the economic argument behind getting people online. By being online there are massive savings for people personally, rich rewards for their career prospects and also big savings for the government. Eighty per cent of the government’s interaction with people is with the deprived members of our society. This is the first time a piece of research had tried to quantify just how many people have never been online and what the economic case is for making this a matter of urgency.”

Source – Telegraph