Back
Monday | 29 August, 2016

Trends in the data: A majority of the population of Georgia now uses the internet

Internet use is on the rise worldwide, and while internet penetration is increasing the world over, in some countries still relatively small shares of the population use it. While only about a third of the population of Georgia reported using the internet at least occasionally in 2009, today, slightly over half of the population is online. This blog post looks at the trends in internet usage in Georgia from 2009 to 2015 by age and settlement type, using the CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer survey (CB) data.

Until 2012, a larger share of the population had reported never using the internet or not knowing what it was than reported using it. In 2013, roughly equal shares reported using and not using the internet. On CB 2015, a majority (57%) of the population of Georgia reported using the internet at least occasionally.





Note: The original question asked: “How often do you use the internet?” For this blog post, answer options “Every day”, “At least once a week”, “At least once a month”, and “Less often” were combined into ‘Yes’. Answer options “Never” and “I don’t know what the internet is” were combined into ‘No’. 

Throughout this period, as one might expect, a larger share of the younger generation has used the internet than the older generation, with 87% of 18-35 year olds reporting using the internet at least occasionally in 2015, compared to only 19% of people aged 56 and older. Interestingly, the largest increase is among those between the ages of 36 and 55, with only 24% of this age group using the internet in 2009 compared with 63% in 2015.






Note: The chart above presents only the shares of those who reported using the internet at least occasionally. 

As is well known, internet usage is lowest in Georgia’s rural settlements. In 2015, slightly less than half of the rural population (43%) reported using the internet. In contrast, roughly seven in ten residents of urban settlements use the internet. Urban settlements outside the capital have seen the largest increase in internet use between 2009 and 2015, with the share of internet users increasing more than 2.5 times in this period, while the share of internet users has more than doubled in rural settlements.






Note: The chart above presents only the shares of those who reported using the internet at least occasionally. 

Currently, a majority of the population of Georgia use the internet at least occasionally. As one might expect, more young people use the internet than older people, and they use it more frequently. While slightly less than half of the rural population uses the internet, this share is steadily increasing. If this growth continues, a majority of the rural population of the country will soon be online as well.

To explore the data yourself, try our online data analysis tool.

24.08.2015 | Monday

Internet and social media usage in Georgia

In April-May 2015, CRRC-Georgia carried out a representative survey of the adult population of Georgia for Transparency International Georgia. The survey contained a number of questions on Internet and social media usage, and the results show us who is online, what people are doing online, who is using social networks, and which networks people use most.
24.06.2015 | Wednesday

Georgia’s e-government – who is it for?

By Davit Mzikyan

[Note:  Social Science in the Caucasus is publishing the work of six young researchers who entered CRRC-Georgia’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) in February 2015. This is the second blog post in the series. Click 
here to see the first blog post.]

In the late 1990’s together with the boom in digital and information technologies, the concept of e-government first began to take shape. Since then, e-government has spread throughout the world. In 2007, e-government was launched in Georgia with the creation of the government commission supporting e-governance development, and in 2010, the Data Exchange Agency (DEA) was created under the Ministry of Justice of Georgia.
07.07.2014 | Monday

Facebook usage in Azerbaijan

On February 3rd, 2014, Facebook celebrated its 10th anniversary. According to the World Map of Social Networks December, 2013 statistics, Facebook is the world’s most popular social network with more than one billion users. It is followed by QZone with 552 million users, Vkontakte (190 million users), Odnoklassniki (45 million users), and Cloob (1 million users). However, it is important to note that social network usage is not distributed evenly geographically. 
25.08.2014 | Monday

Emigration, Language, and Remittances in Georgia

As discussed in a recent blog post, household incomes in Georgia have risen steadily since 2008. The percentage of Georgians who have family or close relatives living abroad has also significantly increased from 37% in 2009 to 53% in 2013. 14% of Georgian households currently receive money from family members, relatives, or friends living in another country as an income source. This blog examines changes in interest in emigrating from Georgia over the last five years, while controlling for certain variables.
13.04.2011 | Wednesday

Internet Penetration in Armenia

Scholar Katy Pearce recently published an article on Epress News (http://www.epress.am/) revealing some interesting points about internet penetration in Armenia. Using information from CRRC's 2010 Caucasus Barometer, Pearce writes that internet penetration tripled from 2009 to 2010 within Armenia. According to Pearce, the most likely reason for this is increased access to mobile internet.
21.01.2008 | Monday

The Global Broadband Speed Test

According to CRRC's 2007 Data Initiative 2007 (visit www.crrccenters.org), around 3% of the population have Internet access at home in Georgia; nevertheless, we were curious to know how fast these people’s Internet speed is across the Caucasus.
06.05.2008 | Tuesday

Diversity Polling on the Caucasus | Ask500

Sometimes it's worth clicking on those Gmail links. "Ask 500" is a website in beta, the web version of a straw poll. Polling? Surveys? Obviously I wanted to know more. To say it up front: it's about as unrepresentative as you can get, since it assembles those that suffer from terminal curiosity.
16.05.2008 | Friday

Creative Commons for the Caucasus! | A real opportunity

Many readers will already be aware of the concept of Creative Commons. The basic idea is to facilitate collaboration, interaction and people adding value to each other's online work. Creative Commons provides licenses for sharing easily, without giving up some of the author's basic rights. A great exposition of this entire concept is given by the founder of the entire idea, Lawrence Lessig, in an engaging TED talk (you didn't think that intellectual property rights could be that entertaining, did you?). See below.
30.07.2008 | Wednesday

Cuil for the Caucasus? A quick test!

As many of you may have heard, this week saw the launch of a competitor to Google. Cuil, which apparently is an old Irish word for knowledge, has been set up by several former Googlists and promises a search that's more oriented on content, and says it can do a more comprehensive job in the ever-expanding worldwide web.