Internet use in Europe: The digital divide revealed
The use of internet varies heavily between the European countries. The level of internet penetration, for example, ranges from 12% in Romania to 82% in Sweden.
This is important. Most of all from a democratic perspective, I guess. Who can take part in the information society? But anyone working with a pan-european commercial web perspective, and corporate blogging as potential part of it, need to know this.
Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, has taken a closer look at the magnitude of the digital divide (news release in pdf).
Some statistics from the report:
85% of the European students used the internet during the first quarter of 2004.
In nearly all Member States a lower proportion of the unemployed than employees used the internet in the first quarter of 2004. Internet use amongst the unemployed ranged from 8% in Lithuania and 10% in Latvia to 86% in Sweden and 76% in the Netherlands.
In all Member States the lowest proportion of internet use was observed for the retired. In thirteen Member States less than 10% of the retired had used the internet, while only in the Netherlands (54%), Sweden (45%), Denmark (34%), and Luxembourg (32%) was the proportion more than a quarter.