by Rod Hughes

A survey by University of Costa Rica researchers reveals that 90% of Tico high school and university students have at least an e-mail account, according to the daily paper La Nación. That figure contrasts dramatically with the only 3% of all Nicaraguans who have access to the Internet, according to a recent report in The Nica Times.

Among the 21-24-year-old group, the survey shows the figure rises to 99% of Tico students. The survey polled 4,000 students between May and December of 2007. But the study also revealed a serious gap between private education and public institutions. While 80.7% of private school students had computers available at school, only 56.3% had access to public school computers. As for home computers, 75.8% in private schools had them at home compared with only 29.7 among students in public education. (Of poorer students, 44.5% admit getting their e-mails at Costa Rica’s ubiquitous Internet cafes.)

If all this seems quite intellectual, it should be pointed out that an overwhelming majority of students admitted they use the Web mostly to send and download trivia, jokes and news. Still, 88.5% of those surveyed felt that computer skills had helped them with their studies.

And, finally, 80.6% of the country’s students had access within their families to a cellular phone, almost the same number as had a fixed line phone at home. Indeed, watching students between classes, the uninformed might think an epidemic of earaches was going around, but they are merely clutching their ears while they chat on their phones. A lot of that is going around with adults here as well.