Who are these Internet holdouts? According to Pew, they're senior citizens, Spanish speakers, adults with less than a high school education, and folks in households with annual incomes of less than $30,000.

Of the adults who don't use the Internet, almost half of them said the Net is irrelevant to them, finds the survey, which is based on interviews with more than 2200 adults 18 years old and older.

Most non-users have never used the Net before and don't have anybody in their household who uses it either, Pew's researchers discovered.

About 20 percent of Internet innocents say they don't know enough about technology to use the Net, surveyors find; and about one in ten non-users say they won't be interested in using the Internet or e-mail in the future.

Survey data also revealed that Americans with disabilities are less likely to go online (54 percent) than those without infirmities (81 percent).