In a dramatic shift that has ocurred over the last 10 years, Internet now forms a significant part of a majority of Canadians’ lifestyle.

TheStar.com – Living online the new norm for Canadians

68 per cent of adult Canadians used the Internet for personal, nonbusiness reasons in 2005.

• In Toronto, that number rose to 75 per cent.
• Almost 2/3 of adult Canadians who used the Internet from home did so every day during a typical month.
• About six in 10 Internet users used it to read news or sports, or to conduct their banking online.

Demographic factors have resulted in meaningful variance between urban and rural lifestyles, although this variance applies to more categories than internet.

The shift to a virtual world raises concern over a “digital divide” that continues to exist between people living in urban and rural communities. Only 58 per cent of residents living in Canada’s small towns or rural areas accessed the World Wide Web, compared to a 68 per cent national average and a high of 77 per cent in some metropolitan areas.
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In general, larger cities have younger populations, more residents with higher levels of income and education, and more allure for Internet service providers — all factors that lead to higher Internet use.

As the Internet becomes more and more important, the poor, the uneducated, seniors and rural residents, “who are already disadvantaged, get left further behind because everybody else has the means to accelerate their own chances,” says Liss Jeffrey, director of the McLuhan Global Research Network and adjunct professor of new media and policy at the University of Toronto.

Some predict the problem might take care of itself, as it did with an earlier gender divide.

The overall message is that Internet is a core in peoples lives, and the customer expectation that comes with that will only generate higher expectations from Banks that don’t deliver enough capabilities online to keep up with the expectation.

The statistics, released yesterday, confirm a reality that many already understood — Canadians have a growing dependence on the Internet and are  doing much more online than emailing and surfing.

More than half of home users said they used the Internet to check weather conditions, make travel arrangements and view news or sports, as well as search for medical or government information, bank electronically and window shop.

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