Ten percent of the Swiss population is offline - Ü65 go online
The Federal Statistical Office has published new figures on internet use in Switzerland. They show who is online in Switzerland and who is not.
90% of adults in Switzerland surfed the internet in the first quarter of 2017, according to figures from the Federal Statistical Office (PDF). In the last survey in 2014, the figure was 84 percent. According to a press release on Admin.ch, internet use has increased significantly among people aged 65 and over.
Almost everyone is online
In 2017, almost nine out of ten households in Switzerland had internet access at their place of residence. The proportion of households connected to the internet is similar in the different regions of Switzerland. Only Ticino is slightly behind with eight out of ten households with an internet connection.
The proportion of households with mobile internet access rose from 60% in 2014 to 78% in 2017. Only 8% of households connected to the internet in 2017 had only a single internet connection at their place of residence. In 2014, the figure was 13%. This year, 85% of respondents stated that they had used the internet the previous day. In 2014, the figure was 10 percentage points lower.
Almost the entire Swiss population between the ages of 15 and 54 has Internet access. Depending on the age category, this figure is between 96% and 99%. Among people aged 55 to 64, 91% now use the Internet, compared to 80% three years earlier. Among 65- to 74-year-olds, the figure rose from 62% to 77%. 45% of people aged 75 and over use the internet, compared to 20 percentage points less in 2014.
E-commerce and the sharing economy
In 2017, two thirds of the Swiss population made at least one purchase online in the past three months. In 2014, the figure was still 56%.
More than a quarter of the population used concepts from the sharing economy. For passenger transport, 8% used a specialized app and 11% used a non-specialized app or website, such as a social network.
In the areas of accommodation and transportation, it is mainly younger people who rely on the sharing economy. The majority of users are between 15 and 44 years old.
Movies, music and IT security
The proportion of people downloading films and music via specialized platforms rose from 42% to 48% for music and from 50% to 58% for films and videos between 2014 and 2017. The exchange of music and films between private individuals via peer-to-peer networks remained at 16%.
Just under a third of internet users stated that they do not use security software or do not know whether it is installed. This proportion has grown continuously since 2010. Security problems, such as viruses, are nevertheless less common. In 2017, 12% of respondents stated that people living in the same household take care of security tasks. (Marcel Urech/NetWeek)
