According to a recent study about online usage conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, twenty-one percent of America's adult population is not using the Internet. Would this type of research even exist if we were in a recession? Do people really care about how other Americans are spending their quality time? I feel the only reason why this even made news is because this would indicate that marketers could be wasting their energy on web advertising and enticing consumers to buy products online, when twenty-one percent of the U.S. population isn’t even privy to this information.

Twenty-one percent of the American population is a lot of people when you put your mind to it. And I am sure economists would stretch this idea to the point where this factor could be contributing to the recession and how slow our economy is trying to recover; all because this amount of the population is not shopping online. Think about it, that’s twenty-one percent of the population that is not checking email, not on Facebook, not downloading music and not shopping online.

Could it be that maybe, just maybe, twenty-one percent of the adult population in America wants to get out of the house and go be with some three-dimensional people? Or drive to the store and be able to hold an object they want to buy in their own hands rather than staring at an image of it on a website? In my opinion, these people all BRILLIANT! They have the right idea. I mean, why should our society succumb to the pressure that online shopping and social networking is the way to go? Think about how lazy our society is slowly becoming and how dependent we are on advanced technology.

I know, I’m just as guilty. I freak out when my Internet stops working, but that’s only because online access is a significant part of my job when it comes to research. I hate that we depend so heavily on something that seems to let society down on an hourly basis due to “technical difficulties.” Think about how people functioned in the 19th Century without Internet, they seemed to get through it just fine.

I say all this to say that it’s sad that this type of statistic makes news. This cause for panic is all due to the fact that one platform for advertising to the American public is wasted on twenty-one percent of people who are not slaves to their computers. It’s almost better that they’re getting out in the world because being in an actual store allows people to buy more items in bulk and spend more money in one pop, rather than surfing from website to website. What a concept!