Anyone who thought that Ireland was an enlightened society long since emerged from the dark ages will have to think again, according to a recent survey surrounding Internet usage.
That’s right, according to a recent Eurostat survey, 21 per cent of people in Ireland aged 16-74 admitted to never having been online. That’s over one in five people for God’s sake.
What sort of person has never sent an e-mail, never been on a social networking site, never looked at some naughty videos or never been on JOE.ie? Only people completely removed from society, we would wager, and we don’t mind having a go at them because they’re not going to be reading this after all.
But it’s not all bad. The figure of 21 percent is half of the 42 per cent that admitted to never having been online in a similar survey recorded in 2006 so at least we’re getting there. 65 per cent of households in Ireland have broadband internet access, a 13 per cent rise from the 2006 figure but still below the EU average of 68 per cent.
We can only assume that most of the 21 per cent of people who have never been online is made up of the 42 per cent of people who admitted to being internet virgins five years ago, because you can be damn sure that the vast majority of young people surveyed will have accessed internet porn at some stage, whether they would have admitted it or not.
As it turns out, Irish people fare reasonably well compared to our European counterparts, as we are slightly below the EU average of24 per cent.
The most enlightened society when it comes to using the internet was Sweden, where only five per cent of the population have never used t’internet, while Romania had the highest percentage of people who had never been online with 54 per cent.
