Americans use of Internet, broadband and wireless flat lines

The Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project has identified some flat lines in Americans technology use in a report released on Tuesday that examined Internet, broadband, and cell phone use nationally.

The percentage of U.S. adults who use the Internet is just a point higher than it was back in 2006, clocking in this year at 74 percent, the survey found.

The survey, which last month polled 2,258 adults and has a margin of error of 2 percent, found 60 percent of American adults use broadband connections at home, down from 63 percent in April 2009. "The Internet, it's pretty clear, is a saturated market," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Meanwhile, the report also found little change in the number of U.S. adults, 55 percent, who connect to the Internet wirelessly. Still, the wireless number is misleading, Rainie said. He noted that wireless use is rising, but consumers are now accessing it through various conduits that the survey does not consider.

The lack of growth in broadband use at home may relate to economic stress, "with people not renewing their contracts, scaling back or not venturing into this area," Rainie said. He predicted growth in broadband use given the injection of funding aimed at spurring broadband access and adoption as part of the federal economic stimulus package passed last February.