LATINOS ON THE INTERNET: MEETING IN THE MIDDLE (Posted 2009-12-22 15:31:27 by Ray Lopez) The Pew Hispanic Center recently released a report [ http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/119.pdf ] describing Internet usage amongst Latinos in the US. Overall, the report was very encouraging. From 2006 to 2008, the percentage of adult Latinos who used the Internet grew by 10 percentage points from 54 to 64 percent. The percentage of adult whites who used the internet also grew during this same time period, from 72 to 76 percent. Interestingly, the percentage of blacks using the Internet during this time only grew by two percentage points, from 61 to 63 percent. The authors of this study suggest that these numbers may be underestimated, because of the fact that cell-phone-only homes have grown dramatically, particularly amongst Latinos and blacks, and this survey was conducted across telephone land-lines. While this overall view is good news, it shows that we still have a long way to to before we achieve true equality in access to Internet resources, and the details of the Pew study bear this out. Latinos born in the US were just as likely as whites to use the internet in 2008, 77 percent to 76 percent, respectively. However, only 52 percent of foreign-born Latinos used the Internet in 2008 (up from 40 percent in 2006). Even more interesting is the fact that this difference persisted when controlling for education levels, household income, and English proficiency. Thus, while young Latinos and US-born Latinos are using the Internet, there is still much to be done to be able to reach foreign-born Latinos. Another area of concern is access to the Internet by poor Latinos and those with less education. Only 56 percent of Latinos earning less than $30K/yr in household income used the Internet in 2008, up from a meager 39 percent in 2006. By comparison, eighty-eight percent of Latinos earning more than $50k/yr used the Internet in 2008, a number that did not change from 2006. These numbers compare favorably to those of whites and blacks, suggesting that the effects of poverty and lower educational attainment on Internet usage cut across race. The Pew report also looked at the use of _broadband_ internet connections by Latinos, blacks, and whites. It is important to look at broadband adoption as a population variable because many of today's web-based applications (e.g. online banking, government services) are bandwidth-intensive and unable to run well on slower, dialup Internet connections. As it turns out, the broadband adoption numbers are similar to those for overall Internet usage. Latinos have gone from 63 percent broadband usage in 2006, up to 76 percent in 2008. These numbers are similar to those for whites and blacks, though Latinos trail slightly behind both groups. As with overall Internet usage, the poor, under-educated, and foreign-born Latinos trailed all other groups in terms of broadband usage. Overall, there was good news in the Pew report, but there are also a lot of challenges which lay ahead. These challenges are important, because Latinos are the fastest-growing minority population in the US, and we cannot afford to have such a large percentage of our population. But what to do? From the results of the Pew report, it is clear that foreign-born Latinos, poor Latinos, and under-educated Latinos are the primary groups that should be targeted in any plan to promote Internet usage. There is likely much overlap between these three groups, but there is also an opportunity to craft interventions aimed specifically at getting more members of each of these 3 groups to use the Internet, and to connect via broadband connections from home. Granted, dealing with these issues entails dealing with a complex universe of interrelated issues, from racism to immigration reform to unemployment. But there are likely many interventions and policy actions which may help alleviate some of the most obvious differences between Latinos and whites. In spite of high levels of education and income, many foreign-born Latinos are not using the Internet. This may be due to a lack of awareness of the utility and value of Internet resources. Awareness may be positively influenced by advertising aimed at getting more foreign-born Latinos interested in using the Internet, as well as education. As more and more children of foreign-born Latinos attend colleges and universities, it would be incumbent on organizations such as the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) to work with federal and state lawmakers to make sure that these schools can provide the resources necessary to enable these students to learn about the resources available on the Internet, and understand the benefits of broadband access. Similarly, under-educated Latinos are in desperate need of these types of resources, particularly at the K-12 levels. Poor Latinos are likely beset with the problem of limited access to the Internet in areas where they live, and especially limited access to broadband. The federal government has plans in place to extend broadband access to underserved areas but such plans are dependent upon accurate maps of broadband usage. The creation of these maps has been a political and technical challenge. From the political side, there are many who are opposed to the idea of broadband mapping, claiming it to be a waste of time and resources. Technically, broadband maps require the cooperation of numerous private and public sector entities, and getting all of these entities to agree on common terminology and common standards is problematic. In sum, Latinos have greater access to the Internet and to broadband than they ever have. If they can just work on building up awareness and education regarding Internet resources, perhaps policy makers can meet them in the middle with better and better plans to extend the technical infrastructure to those who are newly aware of the vast world of cyberspace. -------- There are no comments on this post. To submit a comment on this post, email rl@well.com or visit us on the web [ http://ratthing.com ]. .