The number of people aged 75 and over using the internet has almost doubled in the last seven years, according to new data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

The ONS figures reveal that the number of people in this age group using the internet in 2020 stood at 54 per cent of all people in that age group, compared to just 29 per cent in 2013. This is still, however, well below the 99 per cent of UK adults aged 16 to 44 who were recent users of the internet in 2020. Only 6.3 per cent of all adults in the UK said they had not used the internet at all in 2020, down from 7.5 per cent in 2019.

The number of disabled adults who were recent internet users in 2020 reached almost 11 million, equating to 81 per cent of disabled adults. This is up from just over 10 million (78 per cent of disabled adults) in 2019.

London continued to be the UK region with the highest recent internet use (95 per cent) in 2020, while Northern Ireland remained the lowest at 88 per cent.

Overall, there was a slight increase in the total number of adults declaring themselves recent internet users, up to 92 per cent of all UK adults in 2020, compared to 91 per cent in 2019.