WASHINGTON: Some Americans 'constantly' on Internet; others remain offline!

• Younger adults 'are at the vanguard of the constantly connected'.

More than one in four American adults say they are online "almost constantly," but a small percentage still don't use the Internet at all, a survey showed.The Pew Research Center report said growth of smartphones and other mobile devices has made it easier to be always connected.

As a result, the percentage of US adults saying they are almost constantly online rose to 26 per cent from 21 per cent in a 2015 survey. Overall, the researchers found 77 per cent of Americans go online on a daily basis, including 43 per cent who connect several times a day.

But 11 per cent said they don't use the Internet at all, despite programmes encouraging Americans to use online services. That represents a modest change from 2015, when 15 per cent did not use the Internet.

Older adults are more likely to be offline, Pew said: About one in three of those over 65 did not use the Internet compared with just 2 per cent in the 18-29 age group.

Younger adults, meanwhile, "are at the vanguard of the constantly connected", the Pew report said. About 39 per cent of 18-to 29-year-olds are online almost constantly and 49 per cent go online multiple times per day.

Frequent Internet users are more likely to be college-educated or have incomes above $75,000 annually, Pew said.

The findings were based on a survey of 2,002 American adults in January 2018, with a margin of error estimated at 2.4 percentage points.