Cyprus improving on internet use, but slowly

By Annette Chrysostomou

A NEW study by Eurostat on the use of the internet shows that Cyprus is slowly moving toward the information society, but is still below the EU average.

Among European households that have internet access at home, Iceland scored highest with 96 per cent. In Cyprus, the percentage has improved from 65 per cent in 2013 to 69 per cent in 2014. From the first study in 2005, the number of people with internet access in Cyprus has almost doubled, but the current percentage is still below the EU average which currently stands at 81 per cent.

Similarly, Iceland leads the percentage in households with a broadband connection, with 94 per cent. In Cyprus, the number has risen from 39 per cent in 2005 to 71 per cent last year.

While only 26 per cent of Cypriots aged between 16 and 74 years used the internet at least once a week in 2005, now 65 per cent do. They use it regularly to send and receive email (54 per cent) and social networking (50 per cent), which is close to the European average.

At least six out of ten people in Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom used social networking sites in 2014, as was also the case in Iceland and Norway. At the other end of the scale, four EU member states where less than four in ten people used such sites were France, Poland, Italy and Romania.

The number of individuals who ordered goods or services over the internet for private use has risen sharply in Cyprus over the years. While it was four per cent in 2005, it is now 23 per cent. In comparison, more than two thirds of individuals in the U.K., Denmark, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany and Finland ordered goods or services over the internet in 2014, whereas the proportion was nearer one in five in Italy and Bulgaria and around one in ten in Romania.

 

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.