Survey Finds 1 in 3 Homes Has a Computer : Poll: Responses show the gender gap in PC use has narrowed, but education and income are pronounced factors in the increased demand for information technology.
With stunning speed, information technology has invaded Americans’ lives--with one in three households boasting a personal computer and 11 million people going on line to connect with information services such as Prodigy or electronic bulletin boards, according to one of the largest nationwide polls on technology use.
Although the survey of about 4,000 households, conducted by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press, found that technology’s inroads are narrowing the much-discussed gender gap in computer use, the results suggest that the spread of technology is starting from the top.
Not surprisingly, the survey found that better-educated and more prosperous Americans are more likely to buy and use electronic technology. The disparity is especially pronounced with computers, as opposed to entertainment devices and services.
The survey adds kindling to the debate over providing universal access to information technology. At issue is whether the government should in some way assure the poor equal--or at least minimal--access to the emerging information networks of which today’s on-line services are considered precursors.
Although income and technology, like income and information, have always gone together, the pronounced income bias of the personal computer revolution has some people worried.
“We are concerned about these disparities,” said Anthony Pharr of the Office of Communications of the United Church of Christ, which Monday joined several other consumer and civil rights groups in asking the Federal Communications Commission to promote universal access.
The coalition, which includes the Consumer Federation of America, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the Center for Media Education, contends that video dial-tone applications filed with the FCC by regional phone companies tend to exclude poor and minority areas.
“A lot of traditional forms of communications, such as newspapers and books, are moving toward a digitized format, and in the not-too-distant future they will be carried over digital computerized networks,” Pharr said.
The phone companies rejected the coalition’s criticism, insisting they intend to make networks bringing video programs to the home available in all areas. The charge that “low-income and minority neighborhoods are being systematically excluded is irresponsible and unfounded,” said Edward Young, a Bell Atlantic Corp. vice president. “Typically, communications services are popular products in low-income and minority neighborhoods.”
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The Times Mirror survey found that electronic technologies other than computers are penetrating a broadening spectrum of American households. The survey found that about 47% of Americans have a bank debit card and at least 13 million of them pay at least some of their bills electronically. About 85% of households have a videocassette recorder, and 64% are connected to a cable TV system.
Thus, only 7% of televisions do what TV sets did in the 1950s: simply provide over-the-air broadcast reception. Today, the typical television is wired to a host of devices and services such as cable, VCR and video game systems, the survey found.
According to the survey, a college graduate with a household income of $50,000 a year is three times more likely to own a video camera than a non-graduate who earns less than $30,000. But the difference is nearly 5 to 1 for personal computer ownership and 10 to 1 for ownership of both a computer and a modem, a device that permits access to on-line services.
Similarly, among adults, 18% of men but only 9% of women said they use a personal computer at home almost daily. Among children described as home computer users, 53% were boys and 47% girls. In at least some applications, the survey suggests that girls may be the heavier users.
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About 42% of girls used the computer “often” to do word processing, compared to 31% of boys, and girls and boys were equally likely to be frequent users of educational games or to draw computer pictures or art. The one area on the survey where boys outpaced girls in frequent computer use was in playing non-educational games.
The Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press, established and supported by Times Mirror Corp., conducted the technology survey in January and February. The margin of error, depending on the group polled, was plus or minus two to six percentage points.
