> some are retirees who only have a land line (and genuinely don't use the Internet).
A lot of phone lines use VoIP nowadays, so if they actually use the landline to call someone, there's a good chance they are using the internet anyway (even if their actual endpoint is still analog, which, in itself, is already becoming rare).
Do none of these people have credit or debit cards and only use cash and check? Because plastic uses the internet. Even when they go to the bank to get cash out, they're vicariously using the internet through the service reps terminal to look up their account etc...
If they ever call customer support I wonder the percentage of voip ivr systems use....
Are they on the power grid? Pretty sure most grids are internet connected....
Do they fly out use taxis?
Seems nobody except maybe amish can claim 0 percent Internet use.
Sure. But you need to clearly define this. Is looking at Facebook really that different from a EC payment? Both are just instructing some electronic device to send packets over the internet. Having a call via VoIP can be abstracted to the same thing.
I agree that the sledgehammer approach of saying 'everyone does' is not helpful, but neither is an unclear and inconsistent definition of use.
An actual solution might be to ask who directly pays for internet access or who knowingly uses it; the latter of which is probably what the study found.
A lot of phone lines use VoIP nowadays, so if they actually use the landline to call someone, there's a good chance they are using the internet anyway (even if their actual endpoint is still analog, which, in itself, is already becoming rare).