[Pericles, your comment made sense in that Secret Internet Fatties would think internet access was one of their necessary human rights.]

"What of those among us who have not had any real imperative to start to move our lives online?"

There's your answer... until they HAVE a real imperative, there is no problem to be fixed.

"Yet it is easy to forget that not everyone has been included in this revolution... Today, our world is rapidly shifting to cyberspace. Most services are available online... All this is very exciting, bringing a new digital information age of convenience..."

Speaking of convenience, in 'our world' 2.5 billion people do not even have "a safe, clean and private toilet".

A fact I found out about on World Toilet Day (19 Nov) via the internet. The site quotes Mahatma Gandhi (1925) “Sanitation is more important than independence.” Which is no surprise from someone who famously wore a nappie.

Perversely, their website invites tweets at #wecantwait, so I cannot work out if the people who 'cant wait' but can tweet have their priorities right since they would be the ones without the toilets but with the internet.

So if we are inventing human rights I'm unsure which ones should be more important.

I do not know about access to the WWW and all that modern connectivity being a right: its just that things would be so much more inconvenient without it!

For somebody with no exposure to the internet and its basic hardware the problems will be daunting. Yes, its so easy to say buy a wireless modem and connect your IPAD. But so much has been left unsaid. Perhaps education and affirmative action in setting up the internet for those who have been overcome by these events would be a good thing.

Fully support this article. Thank you Susan.

I find it pathetic that those who struggle with concepts wholly foreign to them, not to mention feeling exposed to the very real scams, viruses etc, are deemed to be unmotivated or unintelligent if they're not confident with computers. Personally I know plenty of intelligent, hardworking people who struggle with computers. It's not difficult to see their intelligence is focused elsewhere, often to loftier purposes that benefit us all, eg caring for others.

It's easy for me (and many others). I have worked decades in an office so computers are part of my daily life – ALL DAY. But on occasion teaching older and not so older generations the 'basics', I often find it takes us both patience to find ways to teach/comprehend new concepts - it's often not basic at all.

Of those teaching themselves as novices, many have related skills, or adapt to it with some natural skill but many don't have the background or skills that might allow them to obtain sufficient competency and confidence on their own. Frankly, knowing what I know now, an average person has a lot to be wary of if they've never used computers.

Even those who "choose" not to get involved with computers must accept substantial consequences and reduced access that was previously available - OK for some, isolating for a majority, critical for others.

If the world again changes in such a revolutionary way, the way it has with computers, at a later point in my life, I hope there will be more understanding for me if my life skills, built over my life, are substantially diminished by the requirement for a completely new set of skills to keep up with the world and get support just when I need it most.