Home internet access for low-income household helps people manage time, money, and family schedules

Could home broadband access help ease the burden of the "bandwidth tax" (the phenomenon of not being able to focus on long-term goals because so much cognitive effort is spent simply figuring out how to make ends meet in the short run) by giving low-income people a tool to better manage time and information? A new survey of recent Comcast Internet Essentials (IE) subscribers suggests that it might. In particular, the survey shows that a high-speed internet subscription at home helps low-income people to better manage time and money. When heads of households were asked how having IE service affected their communication with school and their kids, said the survey finds that:

• 83% report having IE service has helped them or someone in their household “a lot” (73%) or “somewhat” (10%) in doing school work.
• 81% said this statement describes them “very well” (68%) or “somewhat well” (13%): “The internet helps me be more responsive to things going on in my child’s school”.
• 63% said that they or someone in the household went online for schoolwork in the prior week.

Whether the time saving benefits of home broadband access leads to meaningful improvement in people’s lives is an open question – and one we plan to examine in the future.