The New Wave: Who Connects to the Internet, How They Connect and What They Do When They Connect

"One of the most exciting findings of the South African Network Society Survey is that the profile of Internet users has changed....In spite of the poor fixed-line infrastructure in South Africa, people are managing to connect using their mobile phones. But our research shows they are also utilising increased opportunities to connect in schools and colleges, and in Internet Cafes. We are calling this the New Wave because this change in who uses the Internet and how they connect offers the prospect of changing what happens on it - changing its content and even its purpose."

The majority of internet users in South Africa are young and black, and 4 out of 10 live on less than R1,500 (US$190) per month, according this report based on face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,589 South Africans aged 15 and over across rural and urban areas of the country. Published by the University of Witwatersrand, this South African Network Society Project (funded by the Open Society Foundation of South Africa) research was conducted in collaboration with Research ICT Africa.

All interviews were conducted face-to-face. Though the questionnaire was in English, interviews were conducted in multiple languages. Selected findings:

• Internet use has risen dramatically over the last 4 years - from 15% in 2008 to 34% in 2012. If the internet keeps growing at the same rate, more than half of adults in South Africa will be internet users by 2014.
• More people go online daily (22%) than read a newspaper every day (17%).
• People start using the internet to learn, to connect cheaply and efficiently with friends and family, and to help them in their work and/or to look for work.
• Two out of 3 internet users (66%) speak an African language at home, most of the them have not been educated beyond school level, and 4 out of 10 live on less than R1,500 per month.
• Almost three-quarters of them use their phones to go online, though only a minority are entirely dependent on mobiles to get online. Most do not own computers but use them to acquire internet access via internet cafés or other public or shared facilities.
• Most (54%) of those at school or college are internet users.
• There is a "social wave": More internet users have created social network accounts (75%) than have email addresses (66%).

The report also describes some of the barriers to reaching the 66% who are not online. Half (50%) of these non-users say they do not know what the internet is, and only 4% of them own a computer. "[I]n order for most South Africans get access to the Internet we need to increase the availability of facilities at Internet Cafes, libraries, schools and colleges and we need to reduce prices of mobile data." The report finds that one of the greatest impediments to internet use is English language literacy. As reported here, approximately 1 in 5 adults do not read and write English easily, and almost none of these people (3%) use the internet. "The New Wave of users are not rich, but they are literate in English. Until the South African Internet becomes much more multi-lingual, and until Internet connection speeds are fast enough to easily enable access to voice and video content as well as text then millions of South Africans who should be part of the next wave of users are going to remain locked out."

Click here in order to access the full report and infographics from it.
Click here in order to download the 28-page report in PDF format.
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