Of the approximately 48 million people in the UK, one would think a lot of them have used the Internet at least once. That's not the case, according to charity group Citizens Online. According to them, 33%, or 16 million, UK residents have never logged on to the world wide web.

This is right about where the US is, and that country has plateaued off. If the UK follows the trend of its cross-ocean neighbor, the digital divide may continue to be a big multi-generational barrier. Among the concerns and problems that underline the uneasiness for people about going online are that they feel they won't be able to understand how to navigate the Internet and they're worried about identity theft.

It's kind of amazing that, on average, in a coffee shop with 15 people, five of them have never once been online. In this day and age, most people just sort of take it for granted that everyone's tuned in, but apparently that's not the case.

Full story

By Eric Raby