The Australian Communications and Media Authority's Online Participation report paints a mixed picture of the take-up and use of the Internet and online services by Australians.

The reason why 13 percent of the population don't use the Internet varies. Most of the older non-users don't see it as relevant to them, for younger people the barrier is most likely to be cost.

While the likelihood of being a non-user generally increases with age, the big drop occurs in the 65+ bracket. 44 percent of retirement-aged people have never used the Internet.

Household income is another determinant - if you can't afford a connection, you won't use the Internet as frequently. About 70 percent of those in households with incomes under $40,000 use the Internet at least once a week, rising to over 80 percent for incomes between $40,000 and $99,999, and over 90 percent for household incomes of $100,000 and more.

And if you can't use the Internet at home or at work, you probably won't use it at all. 61 percent of those that use it elsewhere do so less than once a year - despite the availability of free access in many public libraries and relatively low-cost access at Internet cafes and similar locations.

(Is that partly because some of the most useful and popular applications such as Internet banking and bill-paying, online shopping, instant messaging, and sending digital photos to relatives aren't the sort of thing you want to do in public?)

An area of possible concern for policymakers is that most (77 percent) people without a home Internet connection don't plan to get one in the near future.

Why not? The most common reasons were "not relevant to my lifestyle" (over 50 percent), "cost" (nearly 40 percent) and "too difficult" (15 percent). There was some variation among the age groups, with the over 65s citing lack of relevance and those under 50 concerned with cost.

There are some interesting similarities and differences in the online activities of the various age groups. Read some details from the report on page 2.