Almost 10 million Polish households connected to the internet

Nearly 10 million households in Poland (77 percent.) are equipped with computers and almost all of them (74 percent.) have access to the Internet. The access is mostly used by young people and mostly in cities – according to data from the Central Statistical Office for 2014.

In 2014. 77.1 percent of households had at least one home computer. “This ratio from is steadily increasing year by year . Depending on the type of household, the computer equipment varies greatly”- emphasize the research experts.

As indicated by the CSO, computers with internet access are more often used in households where there are children and those from large cities and areas with a high degree of urbanization.

With 85.4 percent, the Pomeranian province leads the table of households with computer access, least in Lubuskie Province (70.1 percent). Pomeranian also excels in terms of the number of households with access to the Internet (83.1 percent).

According to CSO data, the main reason for not having Internet access at home was no need to use the network (indicated by 59 percent of households with no access to the internet at home). The second reason – lack of skills (44.8). Also the high costs of equipment (28.7 per cent.) was given as the third reason while high costs of Internet access (22.4 percent) ranks on 4th place.

The main purpose of using a network among people aged 16-74 is to send and receive email (53 percent.), Finding information about goods or services (50 percent.) was 2nd most given answer. Growing interest in reading news online and downloading files from newspapers or magazines (47 percent.) was indicated as the third most popular reason for using the internet at home.

In turn, amongst people aged 12-15 years the main purpose of use of the Internet was to visit chat rooms, discussion groups or forums, instant messaging, creating and reading blogs, and using social networking sites (85 percent).

In 2014, in order to connect to the Internet away from home or work, people aged 16-74 most often used mobile phones or smartphones (27 percent) Laptops ranked 2nd. (23 percent).

GUS stresses the growing interest in the purchase of goods and services over the internet. In 2014,. 34 percent of people asked declared that, in the past 12 months, have ordered clothes and sports equipment online. The rate of online purchases amongst young people (12-15 years) stood at 19 percent.

The CSO survey does not include persons living in collective households such as dormitories, boarding houses, nursing homes, convents, hospitals, barracks, prisons.

Details of the report will be presented in the publication “Information Society in Poland. Statistical results from the years 2010-2014 “, which is released in November.