According to a segment of the Pew Internet and American LIfe Project called Digital Differences, roughly one in five adults in the U.S. don’t go online much, if at all. The chart below describes what the study refers to as the “digital desert,” to where targeted advertising, social networks like Facebook and social proofing, search and streaming media don’t exist.

At first glance, said digital desert consists mainly of senior citizens, those of low income and those who’d preferred to answer the query in Spanish. Level of education was also a primary factor in internet usage – only 43% of adults who dropped out of high school get online, against 71% of high school graduates, and 94% of college graduates. Income also plays an important role, as 97% of citizens in the U.S. making more than $75K per year get online, vs. 62% of those who make less than $30K per year.

Of the 2,260 adults surveyed who said they don’t get online, almost half said that they plainly have no use for the internet, and that they don’t see the web as being relevant to them. Most have never even gotten online, with only 20% stating they know how to use the web, and many have said that there never was internet access in their homes.

The top five reasons respondents cited for not using the net are as follows – 31% said they were plainly “just not interested” in the internet, 12% don’t own a computer, 10% claimed it is too expensive, 9% said it was too difficult and 7% called it a “waste of time.” This ethos of internet irrelevance sounds like it could become a very marketable lifestyle-vacation package. Apparently, there are still large pockets of this “desert” in the country, where life still takes place without Google and internet addiction.

Hat tip to Marketing Vox.