Internet population in SA revealed
The majority of Internet users are now young, black and live on less than R1,500 a month, according to a new report launched on Tuesday (27 November 2012).
The report gives the first results of The South African Network Society Survey, based on face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,589 South African adults across rural and urban areas of the country.
According to the report, one in three (34%) adults in South Africa now use the Internet. Two out of three Internet users (66%) speak an African language at home, although most of the them have not been educated beyond school level, and four out of ten live on less than R1,500 per month.
Almost three quarters of them use their phones to go online, though only a minority is entirely dependent on mobiles to get online. Most don’t own computers but use PCs to get Internet access via Internet cafés or other public or shared facilities.
The report shows Internet use has increased dramatically over the last four years – from 15% in 2008 to 34% this year.
“If the Internet keeps growing at the same rate it has done over the last four years then more than half of adults in South Africa will be Internet users by 2014,” the report states.
Internet users in South Africa demographics
Some of the other key findings in the report include:
- Most new Internet users (52%) first used the Internet on their phones.
- Most (54%) of those at school or college are Internet users.
- More people now go online daily (22%) than daily read a newspaper (17%).
Social Internet wave in SA
The report finds that people start using the Internet to learn, to connect cheaply and efficiently with friends and family and to help them in their work and even to look for work.
Internet users in South Africa
The top five reasons for first going online are: to get information, to socialise, for study, for work or business and to look for a job.
The report also describes some of the barriers to reaching the 66% who are not online. Half (50%) of these non-users say they don’t know what the Internet is and only 4% of them own a computer.
The report finds that one of the greatest impediments to Internet use is English language literacy.
According to the report, about one in five adults do not read and write English easily, and almost none of these people (3%) use the Internet.
South African versus Africa Internet use
All images from ‘The New Wave’ report, written by Indra de Lanerolle, designed by Garage East
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