Including more teens raises user counts
JULY 2, 2008 – In Canada, nearly three-quarters of those ages 16 and older went online for personal reasons during the 12 months prior to June 2008, according to Statistics Canada’s “Canadian Internet Use Survey.” That was up from just over two-thirds in 2005.
Personal Internet use in Canada increased by 5 percentage points between 2005 and 2007. Users ages 16 and 17, who were not included in the 2005 survey, accounted for almost 1 percentage point of that increase.
In 2007, 96% of 16 to 24 year-olds went online, compared with only 29% of those 65 and older. However, Internet use increased across all age groups since 2005.
The overall age distribution of Internet users is fairly even between ages 2 and 54, according to comScore Networks’ “Canadians Online” study. For instance, there are nearly as many 35 to 44 year-old Internet users in Canada as there are 2 to 17 year-old users.
Canada leads the US in the percentage of households with broadband access, and will continue to do so through 2012.
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Statistics Canada estimated that 88% of people who accessed the Internet at home in Canada did so with a high-speed connection in 2007, up from 80% two years earlier. It attributed the growth to new users bypassing dial-up altogether and existing users switching from slower services.
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