Computer ownership still low
Just over a tenth of all Greek adults have visited the Internet at least once in their life, according to figures made public yesterday, while only 35 percent of the population uses computers – with computer ownership being significantly lower. According to a nationwide survey of 18- to 64-year-olds carried out in March and April by Market Analysis pollsters on behalf of the Intel Hellas company, there are 1.9 million computer systems installed in Greece. Some 42.2 percent of these are in Athens, while Thessaloniki accounts for 9.6 percent of the total and some 15.5 percent are in rural areas. The Metron Analysis poll also found that computers slightly outnumber computer users, which it set at 1.86 million. Some 40.5 percent of all users live in Athens, and 9.1 percent in Thessaloniki. Three fifths of computer users said they have a unit at home, while 30 percent uses a computer at work. Men account for 61.4 percent of all computer users, while 33 percent of all users are aged 31-40, and 27 percent are aged 18-24. According to Eurobarometer, the European Commission’s opinion monitor, Greece comes second to last in the 15-state union as far as Internet use is concerned, with 15.1 percent of the population using the World Wide Web. Sweden tops the list at 66.5 percent, while Portugal brings up the rear at 14.8 percent. Furthermore, recent surveys have shown that computer use is very low in the Greek education system, with only 4.8 percent of high school pupils aged 15-17 using computers at school. However, a government drive to boost computer training is beginning to pay off. While in 1999 there was one computer for every 121 senior high school students, by this year the figure has fallen to one unit for every 13 students.
