Sunday, April 16 2000

The Orlando Sentinel

Hispanics now are the second-largest group in the nation on the Internet, a find contained in a new report released last week.

Experts predicted that 1999 would be a big year for computer purchases and Internet use among minority groups because of plummeting computer prices and more free online services.

But no one foresaw that Hispanics would embrace technology in such a big way.

"That's the headline that has everybody startled," said Adam Clayton Powell III, vice president of technology and programs at the Freedom Forum, a foundation promoting free speech and a free press.

The study by Forrester Research, of Cambridge, Mass., involved 80,000 U.S. households and found that access to the Internet from the home jumped 11 percent for all ethnic groups.

Forrester also found that of all families in the survey with computers, 60 percent had purchased their computer in the last two years. The report, conducted in January, has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent.

Asian-Americans, for instance, were the first in the nation to adopt personal computers in large numbers. They are substantially ahead of all groups, including non-Hispanic whites, in computer ownership and online use, studies show.

However, a greater proportion of black households earn less than $15,000 per year, making it more difficult for blacks to buy a computer and connect to the Internet.

Blacks get around that obstacle by logging onto the Internet from work, libraries and other locations.

That trend made blacks the fastest growing group online in 1999, according to the study.

But the survey's most surprising findings were attributed to Hispanic households.

About 47 percent are online, compared with 43 percent for non-Hispanic whites. Half have computers at home, about even with non-Hispanic whites. Now, Hispanics at all income levels are more "wired" than every group except Asian-Americans, Forrester's study showed.

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