The Number: 74% — America's online

Fully three quarters of American adults ages 18 and older use the Internet. There has been little change in the number of online Americans over the past five years, as roughly seven-in-10 or more have been logging on. However, at the start of the previous decade only about half of adults were online. There is no gender gap in Internet use, but young adults, college graduates and upper-income Americans are all more likely to be Internet users (more than nine-in-10 of each group goes online). There is less difference in Internet use in terms of race and ethnicity: 76% of non-Hispanic whites, 70% of blacks and 64% of Hispanics use the Internet.