Thursday, November 03, 2005

A Window on Ourselves
By Frank Ahrens

Nothing says "can't-put-it-down reading!" like census data.

But the folks at the U.S. Census Bureau give us the best regular updates on who we are and what we do -- sometimes at great personal risk to census-takers. Census data expose educational and economic gaps that can be addressed with government and private efforts. The data reveal new categories of Americans that savvy marketers can reach -- consider the minivan, which no one knew they needed until Chrysler realized that families were changing.

The most recent round of data spewed forth by the green eyeshades over at Census tells us how we use our computers and the Internet. Well, owing to the significant lag time between collection of the raw numbers and the shampooing, scrubbing and manicuring of them, the new data -- released Thursday -- tell us how we used our computers and the Internet in 2003. Which, in many ways, given the warp-speed evolution (or intelligent design) of the Internet and technology, is sort of like telling us how we used our computers and Internet in 1990.

But you work with what you've got.

In 1984, only 8.2 percent of U.S. households had computers, and they were diesel-powered. By 2003, that number was up to 61.8 percent, which still seems amazingly low. On the other hand, everyone I know has a TiVo, while only about 5 percent of all U.S. households have digital video recorders. Which just goes to illustrate, once again, what a bubble we live in. And by "we," I mean "you," because I am omniscient. But that's another column.

According to the census data by state, Alaska has the most residents with Internet access, at about 63 percent of all households. Makes sense, I suppose. Alaska's female population portion is lower than the national average. Lotta guys. With a lotta time on their hands. No daylight from October to March. You do the math.

After Alaska, the top Internet-access states are New Hampshire, Colorado, Connecticut and Utah. (Huh?) From the bottom up, the list goes: Mississippi (about 39 percent), Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Alabama.

Computers are no longer a boys' club, says the census. In 1984, 63.1 percent of men who had a home computer used it; only 42.8 percent of women did. In 2003, more women (83.5 percent) than men (81.5 percent) used their home computers.

And there is this soul-crushing statistic, for anyone who lost it all in the dot-com bust by assuming shoppers were ready to flock to the Internet: In 1997, only 2.1 percent of adults used the Internet to buy products or services. By 2003 -- is it too late to get venture capital for a start-up e-tail site? -- that number had soared to 32.3 percent.

Ah, the perils of being ahead of your time. Oh, yeah: and blowing all your money on a Super Bowl ad.