The chief of the FCC is describing some consumers in the U.S. as being  either “Digitally Uncomfortable” or “Digitally Distant”. Before you can decide which category you may fall in, you need to know what these terms mean.

Digitally Uncomfortable”

Take a Digital Hopeful, add more cash and you have this group, which can afford high-speed Internet service but don’t subscribe. “Nearly all of the Digitally Uncomfortable have computers, but they lack the skills to use them and have tepid attitudes toward the Internet,” according to the report. They make up about 7% of the population.

“Digitally Distant”

About 10% of the U.S. population falls into this category, the FCC estimates, including a high-proportion of Americans 63 and older. About half of the Digitally Distant are retired and say they don’t subscribe because they either don’t know how to use a PC or don’t see the point of the Internet.

And there is this statement:

About 35% of Americans aren’t using high-speed Internet at home, the FCC says. Older Americans, the less-educated, lower-income Americans and some minority groups – including non-English speaking Hispanics – as less likely than average to subscribe to broadband. The agency is releasing the report Tuesday morning at an event in Washington.

But we also have a category of folks called “Digital Hopefuls”, that subscribe to the Internet but do not have the money for broadband, or are “Digitally Uncomfortable” because they have computers but lack the skills to use them and see no value using the Internet and there are the “Near Converts” who don’t want to pay $40 a month for high speed access.

I am personally Broadband secure since I pay through the nose for a cable connection. LOL

What are you?

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