Four out of every five Maltese households have internet access, official statistics have shown.
But despite the easy accessibility, one in every three adults has never been online.
ICT usage figures released yesterday by the National Statistics Office show that 78.3 per cent of homes were connected to the net in 2012, up from 76.4 per cent a year earlier.
Families with children are far more likely to have internet access at home than those without, although households of three or more adults are very likely to be online.
The statistics show a neat household digital divide: while 68.2 per cent of adults with an internet connection at home said they had used it within the previous three months, the remaining 29.3 per cent said they had never used the internet at all.
Only families with at least one member aged between 16 and 74 were surveyed, meaning households whose members are 75 or older are not factored in to this figure.
Young people aged 16 to 24 continue to be the most prolific computer and internet users – just over 98 per cent of them have internet access, up almost four percentage points from 2011. That proportion dwindles as users age, with just 26.8 per cent of pensioners using the internet.
There was a significant dip in the share of middle-aged PC and internet users: while half of them were online in 2011, only 39 per cent of them said they were in 2012.
Education continues to be a good predictor for internet use: 98 per cent of tertiary-educated people are internet users, with the figure declining gradually to 62.5 per cent of those with a secondary education.
Eighty-five per cent of those with no schooling are also not internet users, a slight worsening from 2011’s figures, when 82 per cent were not online.
The internet continues to be used most frequently to communicate and access information – more than 90 per cent of users mentioned these two uses.
Men are more likely to have an internet connection than women, and more likely to use it for creative purposes or to access entertainment.
Two out of every five internet users have a smart phone connected to the net. Of these, 32.6 per cent use their phone to send e-mails, 27.8 per cent to read news and 28 per cent to access social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.