Inequalities Order UK Net Users

More Britons than ever have access to the internet, but inequalities sojourn between the with high and low incomes, authorized total show.

In its initial ever comparison of trends in "e-society", the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals that a few 19.2 million households right away have net access.

But that includes only 26% of the on the lowest incomes, the inform says.

Families and young kids are at the heart of UK web use, with 83% of family groups with young kids having online access.

The figures, published by the ONS , uncover that the suit of UK households online has grown from 57% in 2006 to 73% in 2010.

Of those, 96% of the top 10% of earners were online, compared to small more than one-quarter of the lowest 10%.

However, the expenses of access and technology were not cited as the many critical reason gripping people offline.

An stepping up suit of people - roughly 40% - mentioned they simply do not need the internet at home, whilst a few 22% complained that a insufficient of skills hampered their efforts.

The new investigate moreover highlights rising trends amid web users.

By 2009, a few 44% of UK internet users had a form on at least one amicable networking site, the inform says - twice the number who had one in from in 2007.

E-mail remained the many frequently-used online activity, used by 90% of respondents, with data resources and go formulation the next many popular.

More than half of the asked (54%) mentioned they used internet banking, creation it the UK's fourth many widely known internet activity.

Children's flourishing early embracing a cause of new technology is moreover evident. Two-thirds of young kids elderly 5-15 who own a mobile phone had their device by the time they were 10, total show.

A serve 27% had acquired their phone by the time they were 8 years old.

Concerns sojourn over the disadvantage of young young kids and teenagers to intimately improper calm or poise online, with 59% described as "very worried" or "rather worried" about their children's online activities.