Steve Rubel notes that there's a "digital divide" of sorts within the community of well connected (internet) segment of the population:

The first piece of research from Parks Associates (via Dwight Silverman and CNET) reveals that one-fifth of all U.S. heads-of-household have never used e-mail. Based on the conversations I had in Europe this past week, this is even more pronounced outside the US. High mobile penetration outside the US, however, make things a bit more complicated to track.

Meanwhile, a separate white paper from IDC/Nortel (via Jackie Huba) - this one spanning 17 countries - found that 16% of the information workforce is already "Hyperconnected" and that another 36% will be joining us soon. Definitely download the PDF. It's an interesting read.

Steve concludes that traditional media's (and advertising's) half life is longer than some people might think - but I've got a different question about this: what's the age breakdown look like? Anecdotally, there's a fairly sharp divide at my age: there are those of us in our forties who have latched onto the net, and then there are those of the same generation who simply haven't. As you increase the age cohort, the number of "not really connected" grows larger and larger.

However, if you go in the other direction, it's the opposite: very, very few people (at least in the income brackets I'm familiar with) in their 20's and younger aren't online constantly. In my teenage daughter's cohort, I would be astonished to find someone who didn't use a mobile, a social network (probably Facebook), and IM.

I rather suspect that the divide Steve Rubel spots now will be more or less gone in 20 years.

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