Status: 11/04/2023 11:37 AM
Many services, appointment bookings and transfers are often only offered online. This is a problem for the six percent of the population because they live off the internet. According to the Federal Statistical Office, one age group in particular is affected.
Approximately six percent of people between the ages of 16 and 74 in Germany have never used the Internet. This was reported by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden, citing surveys of user behavior in the field of communications from last year. This equates to about 3.4 million people in the Federal Republic.
Accordingly, the proportion of so-called non-retards was greater in the 65- to 74-year-old group. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, one-sixth or 17 percent of these people have never used the Internet. In the 45-64 age group, five percent have never been online, and among those under 45, two percent are still not.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for people without the Internet to deal with daily life. Since many services, appointment bookings and transfers are often only offered online.
Big differences within the European Union
On average in the European Union (EU), according to Eurostat, the proportion of businesses not connected to the Internet was seven percent in 2022. There were clear differences in EU member states: in Scandinavia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland, no internet was used. Never less than four percent of children between the ages of 16 and 74.
The highest percentages were recorded in Greece and Portugal with 14% each, and Croatia and Bulgaria with 13% each.
one-third of the world’s population now
According to estimates by the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union (ITU), about 34 percent of the world’s population will be offline in 2022 – that’s 2.7 billion people worldwide. In Europe — including non-EU countries — and America, the Internet is easily accessible, but here, too, 11 percent and 17 percent of the population, respectively, will not have access to the Internet in 2022.
