'Digital divide' continues to split urban, rural dwellers

A digital divide continues to leave rural people behindsuburbanites and city dwellers in Internet access, but rural folksare making savvy use of the connections they have, according toresearch being made public today.

"If you care about adoption of the Internet in rural areas, it isclear there is work still to be done," said Lee Rainie, director ofthe Pew Internet & American Life Project, which did the research.

Especially worrisome is the gap in Internet use between African-American rural residents and their white neighbors. Fewer than athird (31 percent) of rural African Americans go online, while 54percent of rural whites do so.

The Pew researchers believe the disparity can be traced to thefact that 70 percent of rural African Americans live in householdswith incomes of less than $30,000 a year, compared with 44 percent ofrural whites.

Another barrier to rural Internet access is a scarcity of Internetservice providers. The Pew research does not speculate on thepossible reasons, but businesses find it harder to profit from a lessdense and, in many cases, less affluent, population.

About 29 percent of rural Internet users said their Internetservice provider is the only one available to them, the Pew surveyfound.

Perhaps as a result, 8 percent of rural residents reach theInternet exclusively from school, a library or a friend's houserather than from their workplaces or their homes, and they are lesslikely than their urban or suburban counterparts to have high-speedbroadband access at home.

The Pew project has been surveying people about their Internet usefor four years. Its latest findings, based on data it collectedbetween March and August 2003, are the first to focus on how peoplein rural, suburban and urban environments use the Internet.

Despite the disparities, rural residents were more likely thantheir peers in cities and suburbs to use instant-messaging softwareto communicate.

Rainie pointed to low incomes in rural areas as a potential rootcause. "You've got to think [instant messaging] saves the expense ofphone calls," he said, though he cautioned that the Pew project hasno data showing cause and effect.

Rural residents also were more likely than city and suburbanresidents to use the Internet for serious pursuits, such as findinginformation about health care, and were less likely to shop online.

The result is hardly surprising, because rural people often findit harder to obtain good health care and information, Rainie said.

The experience makes rural residents more savvy Internet usersthan people who go online to send e-mail, play games or browse theWeb, he said.

Not surprisingly, rural residents go online for information and toseek support groups, sports leagues and civic groups -- communitiesthey cannot find in their neighborhoods.

Half of rural residents surveyed said most of the members of theironline community live throughout the country. By comparison, 42percent of suburbanites said so, and 39 percent of urbanites said so.

Rural people also are more likely than their urban or suburbanpeers to go online in search of spiritual or religious information.Among rural users, such activity (35 percent) is more popular thanbanking online (28 percent), looking for a place to live (26 percent)and downloading music (26 percent).

"People take to the online world the things that matter most tothem in the off-line world," Rainie said.