Almost a quarter of the European Union’s citizens have never used the internet, according to official research.<\/p>\n
The survey of 16- to 74-year olds by statistics agency Eurostat suggests 24% have never gone online.<\/p>\n
It said that was an improvement on the 42% figure reported in 2006.<\/p>\n
Romania topped the list, with 54% of its inhabitants classed as net-holdhouts. At the other end of the scale, Sweden’s proportion was 5%.<\/p>\n
The UK ranked sixth out of 27 states with an 11% figure.<\/p>\n
The data suggests an internet gulf is growing between the web-friendly north and the poorer south and east.<\/p>\n
The EU’s Digital Agenda for Europe strategy aims to reduce the total share of internet refuseniks to 15% by 2015.<\/p>\n
The survey covered 214,580 people living in 149,331 households.<\/p>\n
It suggests that more than half of EU citizens use the internet every day or almost every day, while just over two-thirds use it at least once a week.<\/p>\n
Men were slightly more likely to use the internet regularly – 75% versus 65% logging on once every seven days.<\/p>\n
Home accounts<\/strong><\/p>\n The survey also studied the number of households with internet access.<\/p>\n The Netherlands came out on top with 94% of its homes connected, followed by Sweden and Luxembourg (91%), and Denmark (90%).<\/p>\n By contrast, only 45% of Bulgarian households were linked to the internet, while the figure was 47% in Romania.<\/p>\n Eighty-five per cent of the UK’s homes have access, putting it ahead of Germany, Ireland, France and Spain.<\/p>\n The statisticians also noted a shift towards broadband use. Sixty-eight per cent of households across the EU used fast-speed connections rather than slower dial-up access. That was more than double 2006’s 30% figure.<\/p>\n The UK led the way in e-commerce. Eighty-two per cent of its internet users had ordered goods or services over the net for private purposes over the past 12 months. That compared with an EU-wide average of 58%.<\/p>\n Across the bloc as a whole, the data also suggested 56% of internet users read news online, 54% looked for health related information, 53% participated in social networks and 10% had voted online or taken part in online consultations. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Almost a quarter of the European Union’s citizens have never used the internet, according to official research. The survey of 16- to 74-year olds by statistics agency Eurostat suggests 24% have never gone online. It said that was an improvement on the 42% figure reported in 2006. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n