>But these remaining holdouts are likely to be the hardest to reach, because you can't just throw money at them. Of non-Internet users surveyed in 2013, just 19

>But these remaining holdouts are likely to be the hardest to reach, because you can't just throw money at them. Of non-Internet users surveyed in 2013, just 19 percent cited the cost of Internet or owning a computer as an obstacle to adoption. Many more, 34 percent, said they didn't find the Internet relevant to them (though with seemingly 99.9 percent of the Web devoted to cat GIFs, perhaps they have a point). Thirty-two percent said the Web was too difficult to use, according to Pew. I wonder how many fell into the bucket of "found a computer (not the web) too difficult to use." I'm quite serious. My father, despite building TVs from Heathkits, is a high school dropout. My mother did graduate high school but is a bit of a luddite. For decades I would describe their personal computing experience as "clunky". My father understood the hardware (hell, HE was the one who upgraded our 486), but my mother is of the mindset that a computer is a complicated thing you're liable to "screw up" or "break". She's now 60, he's 66. Previously their computer use was minimal, aside from my dad meticulously maintaining his media library, which mom chides him for ("he's going to break something"). Yet, I give her an iPad, and everything changes. She has no beef with it. She's not afraid of it. She uses it probably 4 to 6 hours a day, every day, managing what she cares about within a few select apps. Well, it was a few select apps. Last I looked at her iPad she has nearly 80. She also now has a Kindle, a FitBit, and an AppleTV. Moreover, they live in an elderly community. Average age is mid 70s. Folks with landlines, and a surprising number that have never owned a computer. Ever. It was really odd to find out my mother was convincing people to get iPads, and she'd have my father go do a simple installation of an Apple Airport Extreme (since it can be managed via iOS), and giving folks a crash course. You now have octogenarians, who never previously used a computer for the previous 80 years of their life, playing games with each other online, sending emails and IMs, looking for funny cat GIFs, streaming movies and TV shows on Netflix, filling their Instagram accounts with new photos, managing recipes, tracking their health/nutrition, connecting with grandkids on Facebook, browsing the web and shopping online, and so on and so forth. I think my folks have brought nearly twenty people into the 21st century in just three years, with my mother of all people leading the charge to get them on board. Some have gone further. Some now have Kindles so they can read on the bus or at the doctor's office. Some have set-top boxes which they use to stream with. Though a computer? Zero. For the older generation, tablets don't seem to have the stigma a full-fledged personal computer does, and with only a little nudging and demonstration of how simple things can be, they're damn willing to see what they've been missing.