A
study by the Royal Geographic Society identifies five key reasons people aren’t
online; lack of skills, suspicions around the morality and safety of being
online, a lack of motivation, access barriers including poor connection or
disabilities and it just being too expensive.
For housing associations pushing to get tenants online some
are easier to address than others. Free IT classes are widely available to
address skills barriers, low cost broadband packages and WiFi can be fairly
easily provided and putting PCs in public area improves access for those who
can’t afford their own kit or connection.
However with a lack of motivation none of this will be
effective. In response to a discussion on mobile internet my Great Aunt
suggested ‘It’s always been there, in the air, but we just didn’t use it’ and
this echoes the situation for most of our digitally excluded customers.
