BROOKE GLADSTONE: A new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that after years of steady growth the number of people using the internet has flatlined. In fact, the study says an increasing number of people are choosing to stop using the internet all together -- people the report calls "net dropouts." On the Media's Susan Kaplan reports.

SUSAN KAPLAN: Three years ago, Pew researchers began looking at basic demographics about who goes on line. The new report is a more extensive followup. It shows the number of Americans on line since 2001 hovering between 57 and 61 percent. But what it really examines is the growing number of people who are cutting back. Pew researcher Amanda Lenhart.

AMANDA LENHART:People don't just go on line and stay on line, then in some cases they come on line and then they drop off line. And I think that the balance point of that fluidity may have changed, and so that may be why we're seeing a flattening of the internet population.

SUSAN KAPLAN: Lenhart says younger Americans are more wired than older; wealthier, more connected than those less well off; college educated using the net more than those who only complete high school and white Americans are on line more than African-Americans and Hispanics. And, she says, more women than men seem to be avoiding the net. The report identifies three categories -- net dropouts, net evaders and the truly disconnected. Dropouts are those who used to be on line but quit; net evaders a kind of second hand user -- let others go on line for them. And the truly disconnected are proud that they never got hooked on the technology in the first place. And when I went searching for them, I discovered them in libraries, in bookstores and on college campuses.

DR. RADOSH: My name is Dr. Radosh and in my spare time I do a lot of community theatre, so I'm rarely home at night, and when I am home, I'd rather read a book or walk my dog. [LAUGHS] So, no, I do not go on - I do not go on line when I'm home.

SUSAN KAPLAN: Carolyn Broughton-Willet.

CAROYLN BROUGHTON-WILLETT: I'm a net evader. I always get my husband to do it. I even get my dad to do stuff, and, and he's more of an evader than I am. Oh, I think it's probably just machine-intimidation. It's fun! It's fun to get instant information, but I just prefer to watch someone else do it a lot of the time. [LAUGHS]

SUSAN KAPLAN: Poet Wesley McNair is a full-fledged net dropout. He abandoned the internet several years ago.

WESLEY McNAIR: Because I would feel overwhelmed by extensive use of the web. I think it just makes my brain itch.

SUSAN KAPLAN: McNair, who teaches at the University of Maine and who served on the nominating jury for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2002 says he was once inundated with e-mail.

WESLEY McNAIR:I would sit down at the computer and look and see what I had for the day, and there would be dozens and dozens of e-mails, and it was taking so much of my time, this, this e-mail -getting e-mails and responding to the e-mails that I finally felt I had to limit myself.

SUSAN KAPLAN: Eventually McNair went back on line, but he only uses it in small doses when it's absolutely necessary, and he admits allowing his daughter to make a web page about him, but the only way to contact him is still via snail mail or the telephone. People like McNair are described in more detail in the new Pew report than in previous studies. Researcher Amanda Lenhart says she was surprised there are still large numbers of people who don't know what's on the web.

AMANDA LENHART:Who didn't know that you could find recipes or music or that you could find all sorts of kinds of information on the internet, and I think once there was a sense that this is -this, this is such an indispensable tool -that this is like a library and a telephone and a television and an entertainment center -- everything all packaged into one, into one tool, I think Americans are more and more likely to find it and it's indispensable in their lives. So I'm not sure if the internet necessarily needs to repackage itself; if whether it might need an educational campaign to get in contact with those non-users and intermittent users who may not be aware of what it really has to offer.

SUSAN KAPLAN: But not everyone assumes the internet should be part of everyone's life.

ESTHER DYSON: You see I don't think it's a moral imperative for people to get on the net.

SUSAN KAPLAN: Web pioneer Esther Dyson publishes a leading journal on internet policy.

ESTHER DYSON: If they don't want it, I don't want to force it down their throats. The industry may want to because it wants to make more money, but I don't necessarily agree that we should do that. From the social point of view, I want kids to have access at school and be taught. From the business point of view I'm sure that the business people will take care of it.

SUSAN KAPLAN: Dyson, who formally chaired ICANN - the international agency that set standards for building the web - says the power of the web shouldn't be oversold. And she says the real issue is access -- particularly for school children in poor communities -- and while the Pew study looked at internet use in America where use seems to be holding steady, Dyson says it's the way the rest of the world catches up with the technology that will really determine its future. For On the Media, I'm Susan Kaplan. [MUSIC]