What is this Internet thing?
While a third (34%) of adults in South Africa now use the Internet, an additional third do not even know what the Internet is, according to new research.
The majority of Internet users are now young, black and live on less than R1,500 a month, according to The South African Network Society Survey. The survey is based on face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,589 South African adults, across rural and urban areas of the country.
The survey found that two out of three Internet users (66%) speak an African language at home, while most have not been educated beyond school level, and four out of ten live on less than R1,500 per month.
Almost three quarters of respondents use their phones to go online, though only a minority are entirely dependent on mobiles to get online.
A majority of respondents did not own computers, but used PCs to get Internet access via Internet cafés or other public or shared facilities.
“The New Wave – who uses the Internet in South Africa, where they use it and what they use it for” was written by Indra de Lanerolle, a visiting research associate at University of Witwatersrand and leader of the South African Network Society Survey.
The report also highlighted some of the barriers to reaching the 66% who are not online. Half (50%) of these non-users say they don’t know what the Internet is, and only 4% of them own a computer.
De Lanerolle argues that reaching these people is not guaranteed.
“Our research indicates that ordinary South Africans are now finding social and economic benefits from going online,” he said.
“But in order for most South Africans get access to the Internet we need to increase the availability of facilities at Internet Cafes, libraries, schools and colleges and we need to reduce prices of mobile data.”
The report found that one of the greatest impediments to Internet use is English language literacy. About one in five adults do not read and write English easily and almost none of these people (3%) use the Internet.
“The New Wave of users are not rich, but they are literate in English. Until the South African Internet becomes much more multi-lingual, and until Internet connection speeds are fast enough to easily enable access to voice and video content as well as text then millions of South Africans who should be part of the next wave of users are going to remain locked out, ” de Lanerolle said.
Additional key findings in the report include:
- Most new Internet users (52%) first used the Internet on their phones;
- Most (54%) of those at school or college are Internet users;
- More people now go online daily (22%) than daily read a newspaper (17%).
The report found that people start using the Internet to learn, to connect cheaply and efficiently with friends and family and to help them in their work and even to look for work.
The top five reasons for first going online were to get information; to socialise; for study; for work or business; and to look for a job.
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