Easy? Fast? Reliable? What we should know about the internet

In a world in which a growing proportion of the population spends a growing proportion of their lives online, politicians and policymakers pay far too little attention to digital demographics.

Governments and research organisations typically measure internet “access”. A 2015 Pew study, for instance, found that 16 per cent of all US adults do not use the internet, a number that included 42 per cent of over-65s but only 4 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds. The European Commission has mapped the EU in terms of how often residents in subregions across different EU countries access the internet. As of 2009, 30 per cent of EU citizens had never used the internet at all.

Access, however, is just the beginning. Being able to get online does not measure the quality of the experience or the ability to take advantage of it.