Online employment and education resources are becoming valuable tools for employers and educators, meaning that Canadians who do not have Internet access may be missing out on significant personal opportunities.
Although young Canadians could be described as being Internet savvy, some important browsing activities were more common among older users. In particular, Canadians aged 16 to 25 were significantly less likely to go online to search for healthrelated or government information. Certainly, younger Canadians may have less need for this information, but that changes quickly beginning with the 26 to 35 age group and beyond. Approximately half of those older than 25 years of age performed these activities in a typical month in 2003.
Although few Canadians in their teens or early twenties had an interest or a need for online banking, more than half (51.2%) of those aged 26 to 35 did banking online in a typical month. Shopping or browsing for products on the Internet was also most popular among those in their late twenties and early-to-mid-thirties (49.4%), although it caught the attention of most other age groups to a lesser degree.5
There was relatively little difference in the proportion of Canadian Internet users of different age groups engaging in some of the most popular Internet activities, such as general browsing, e-mail, and following news and current events. These activities appear to be essential to a majority of Internet surfers of all ages.
Young Canadian computer users aged 16 to 25 years were also the most active in terms of writing or editing text (84.8%), playing games (68.3%), reading information from a CD-ROM or DVD (65.2%), creating graphics, pictures, designs or presentations (52.2%) and programming (17.3%) (Table 9). Computer graphics and web design (not measured in the ALL survey) have also emerged as popular postsecondary programs of study for young individuals. Meanwhile, activities that tended to be workrelated, such as maintaining accounts or spreadsheets and keeping a schedule or calendar, were more popular among middle-aged adults. Overall, differences for non-Internet related computer activities by age were not as large as differences observed in Internet usage.
| Age group | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 to 25 | 26 to 35 | 36 to 45 | 46 to 55 | 56 to 65 | Ratio youngest age group oldest |
|
| % of computers users | ||||||
| Use of Internet | 97,9 | 94,1 | 91,2 | 87,4 | 78,5 | 1,2 |
| Writing or editing text | 84,8 | 79,5 | 72,9 | 71,0 | 62,4 | 1,4 |
| Playing games | 68,3 | 52,7 | 45,7 | 41,0 | 44,5 | 1,5 |
| Reading information on a CD-ROM or DVD | 65,2 | 63,2 | 60,6 | 54,3 | 41,9 | 1,6 |
| Creating graphics, designs, pictures or presentations |
52,2 | 47,4 | 42,4 | 37,8 | 24,5 | 2,1 |
| Accounts, spreadsheets or statistical analysis | 40,6 | 56,1 | 53,0 | 50,5 | 39,2 | 1,0 |
| Keeping a schedule or calendar | 29,1 | 48,4 | 43,2 | 39,1 | 27,5 | 1,1 |
| Programming or writing computer code | 17,3 | 14,2 | 12,3 | 8,8 | 5,3 | 3,3 |
Source: Statistics Canada, Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, 2003.
5 An estimated 3.2 million Canadian households actively participated in ecommerce in 2003, spending just over $3.0 billion on Internet shopping. Although rising every year, this represented only a fraction of the $688 billion in total personal expenditure in Canada in 2003 (Statistics Canada 2004).