Between 1984 and 1989, the number of US households with computers nearly doubled, reaching 13.7m. According to a recent survey conducted by the US Census Bureau, some 74.9m people had regular contact with computers, and the report concludes that 46% of children between the ages of three and 17 used a computer at home or in school in 1989, up from less than 33% in 1984. Computer Use in the United States: 1989 notes that 43.4% of students between the ages of three and five used computers, and that figure increased to 81.8% of those in high school. Of students over 18 years old, 28% reported using a computer at home, work or in school, up from 18% in 1984, and of a 115m working population, 37% used a computer at work in 1989, compared with 25% five years earlier. The report was based on interviews with 53,600 people conducted by Census researchers in October 1989, and questions were phrased to exclude game cartridge machines from the definition of a computer. The Bureau attributes the increase in computer use to lowered costs and increased availability of software. The research found sharp differences in computer access across lines of income, education and ethnic groups. Computer ownership was more likely in households with yearly incomes of $75,000 or more, and only 4.8% of households with income below $15,000 owned a computer. Homes with school-age children were more than twice as likely as those without to have a computer, 25.7% compared with 11.4%, and nearly half the children in households that included someone with four or more years of college had a computer, compared with just 3.6% of children in households in which someone had less than a high school education. Of white children, 26.7% had access to a computer at home compared with 10.6% of black children, and in schools, 48% of white students use computers compared with 35% of black students. Boys were more likely to have access to a home computer than girls, 25.2% compared with 23.1%. The study also found that 45.9% of state school children used a computer at school compared with 49.9% of private school children. At home, just 17.3% of public school children had access to a computer compared with 28% of private school children. The Census found that 62% of home-computer owners use their machines for word processing, while video game playing was mentioned by 44% of adults and 84% of children. Only 41% of home computers had a hard disk in the 1989 study, 23% had a modem, 12% had laser printers, and only 19% of adults mentioned programming among their computing activities. The report also found that women were more likely than men to use computers at work, workers in finance, insurance and property were the most likely to use them, and the peak buying period was 1986 and 1987 when 34% of the households bought their computers.
