"After lagging the broader US population in online usage, African Americans are starting to catch up. A new report from eMarketer explains why.African-American Internet users make up 10.5% of the total online population, according to eMarketer.
"But amid the good news, there is still frustration," says Ms. Debra Aho Williamson, Senior Analyst at eMarketer and author of the African Americans Online report. "Just 50% to 60% of African American households have computers, versus 70% of white households. Though African Americans are increasingly using the Internet at work, home access is a strong driver of frequency of use."
A greater concern, however, is that the remaining lag in usage may also be self-imposed. "The most worrying factor," says Ms. Williamson, "is that a large percentage of African Americans don't appear to be interested in going online, even if they have the money and education to do it."
"Some of the digital divide is self-imposed," Bruce Gordon, head of the NAACP, told Businessweek in October 2005. "A computer and a DSL line don't cost that much anymore. We need to convince more households to buy computers and go online."
It still bothers me that so much digital divide publicity points to differences between blacks and whites. Asians and Hispanics, just to name a few, are generally included in national research but rarely included in publicised reports... I'm just sayin'
