[dogscoff]

but when you find someone {..on the web..} from another country, odds are he is from the educated elite, or at least the upper middle class.

Your argument doesn't really hold, because there are plenty of other countries have equal or higher internet uptake than the US.

According to the CIA world factbook 2002:
US: 165.75m internet Users out of 290m total population = approx 57.2%

Here are just some other countries at similar levels:

Canada: 16.84 out of 32.2 = 52%
Australia: 10.63 out of 20 = 53%
South Korea: 25.6 out of 48.2 = 53.1%
UK: 34.3 out of 60.1 = 57.1%
Norway: 2.7 out of 4.5 = 60%
Netherlands: 9.73 out of 16.1 = 60.4%
Switzerland: 4.82 out of 7.3 = 66%
Denmark: 3.37m out of 5m = 67.4%
Sweden: 6.0 out of 8.9 = 67.4%

As you can see, by your theory, it's the scandinavians who should get the worst reputation for Online cretins.

If anyone has more up to date/ more commprehensive figures than these, please post them.

[ April 08, 2004, 15:30: Message edited by: dogscoff ]