Surfing grannies: Almost 50% of the Dutch over-75s are now active online

Some 1.2 million people in the Netherlands, or 8% of the population, have never used the internet, the national statistics office CBS said on Friday.

Most of them are elderly pensioners, but almost 50% of the over-75s are active online, the survey showed. Three years ago, just 35% of the over-75s surfed the internet.

Of the people who don’t surf the web, 870,000 have no internet connection at home and the rest have internet but ignore it, the CBS said.

Seven out of 10 of people who don’t have an internet connection at home say they are simply not interested in doing so. The second most commonly cited reason is a lack of skills. Just 14% cite privacy issues.