A whopping 84 percent of Californians now have access to broadband internet at home, up 9 percentage points since 2014, according to a new Field Poll. At that rate, the digital divide — the gulf between the information haves and have nots — could be wiped out in less than three years.
But most of those gains have come from increased smartphone use. In the past year alone, there’s been a near doubling — from 8 percent to 14 percent — of state residents now online because of smartphones. Meanwhile, the percentage of Californians connecting to the internet via a laptop or a desktop has remained flat for several years.