NTIA Data Offers Window Into Understanding Veterans’ Computer and Internet Use

Understanding the barriers to veterans' broadband access and adoption is the first step to reducing the challenges veterans face as they seek out job opportunities, affordable housing, vital health services and more. In advance of Veterans Day, NTIA conducted an analysis of its Digital Nation data to better understand the landscape of veterans' computer and internet use in America.  Since 1994, NTIA has partnered with the U.S. Census Bureau to survey Americans about their computer and Internet use. Were we able to break out the data by veteran status going all the way back to our earliest data collections. We also added "Veteran Status" as a search option in our Data Explorer tool so that the public can more easily examine the data and create custom charts about internet use by veterans. Veterans are demographically distinct from the overall U.S. population. The average age of veterans is 61, which is considerably older than non-veterans, with an average age of 45. Veterans are also more likely to live in rural areas and are more twice as likely to be disabled compared to the rest of the population. In addition, about half of veterans - 52 percent - are retired or not in the labor force. After accounting for demographic factors with known links to internet use, our analysis shows that veterans are 1 to 2 percent more likely to use the internet than non-veteran peers. Age is among the most important demographic factors affecting internet use.  When examining individual age groups, veterans are more likely than non-veterans in the same age group to use the internet (See Figure 1). Since the military has been downsizing since around 1970(link is external), the veteran population is disproportionately older. This suggests that the rate of internet adoption among veterans is likely to increase over time.