Factors affecting the home adoption of ICT by non-adopters in Central Queensland, Australia

The use of Internet technologies at the societal level is being seen as a fundamental driver for economic, social and cultural sustainability in both developed and developing situations. Experience to date suggests that despite the provision of expensive infrastructural access, adoption of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) for local community benefit has been relatively slow. In contextualising this issue for wider application in other situations, particularly in developing countries, this paper examines the level of non-adoption of the Internet from their home in Central Queensland, Australia, when access has been easily available for more than five years. In a population where home adoption of the Internet is 44%, this research found that there were wide variations in reasons for non-adoption across the socio-economic parameters. The findings from this research support the proposition of discontinuous adoption based on psychographic profiles. The implication is that higher adoption of ICT in homes which is intrinsically linked to the demand for IT products and services requires targeted programs to address the concerns of different societal subsets.