Disability in the Digital Age

1. Disability in the Digital Age A Chart Pack By Susannah Fox and Jan Lauren Boyles

2. Disability in the Digital Age More than 20 years after the initial passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, internet access remains unequally distributed. Adults living with disabilities do not engage in networked society at the same rate as their peers who do not report disability, data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows. According to a September 2010 survey by Pew Internet, nearly three in 10 American adults (27%) live with a disability that inhibits their daily functioning. The U.S. Census Bureau, which uses a more restrictive definition of disability, estimates in mid-2012 that nearly one in five Americans (19%) live with a disability. Individuals who identified a disability use the internet at lower rates than those who did not report disabilities, Pew Internet data also demonstrates (54% vs. 81%). Again, this data parallels findings from the Census Bureau, which documented far lower levels of internet use among those with disabilities compared to those living without disability (48% vs. 74%). These lower levels of internet activity among those with disabilities stand in stark relief to the rest of the population, especially as the peer-to-peer healthcare movement accelerates online. By delving deeper into the demographic data, we now present a more detailed look at adults living with disabilities and their interplay with the internet. References: 1) http://www.ada.gov/q%26aeng02.htm 2) http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Disability.aspx 2) http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/disability/sipp/disable10.html 3) Table 4: http://www.census.gov/hhes/computer/publications/2010.html

13. Methodology The results in this chart pack are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International between August 9 and September 13, 2010, among a sample of 3,001 adults, age 18 and older. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. A combination of landline and cellular random digit dial samples was used to represent all adults in the continental United States who have access to either a landline or cellular telephone. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. For results based internet users (n=2,065), the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting telephone surveys may introduce some error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.