Left behind in the digital society – Growing social stratification of internet non-use in Switzerland

Abstract

In a highly digitized society, internet use yields many advantages in everyday life. In Switzerland, today the share of non-users is dwindling. At the same time, disadvantages of internet non-use become increasingly severe. For more evidence-based public policies to mitigate the risks of digital and social exclusion, long-term results from representative surveys are needed. This chapter investigates how the digital divide – social differences in internet adoption – evolved in Switzerland from 2011 to 2019. The results of multiple binary logistic regressions reveal that internet use remains stratified along existing social differences. Non-use has become increasingly concentrated in traditionally disadvantaged societal groups: people with lower education and income and higher age are more likely
to be non-users. Lack of interest and lack of skills are among the main reported reasons for non-use. This underlines that a basic level of media literacy is needed for internet adoption. Non-users feel less integrated into today’s society, which highlights the relevance of promoting internet use among them, for instance by having them benefit from the internet indirectly through proxy-use.