The world may be increasingly dependent on the internet but tens of thousands of people in Barking & Dagenham and Havering have not been online in the last three months, and probably never have.

Over the last 20 years the web has become more and more a part of everyday lives. Many people check social media or news websites when they wake up in the morning.

Shopping, work or simply filling out an application forms for council tax, or benefits, are increasingly online activities.

However data from the Office for National Statistics shows that 6.7per cent of residents aged 16 or over have not used the internet in the last three months.

That’s 23,000 adults. And it is likely those people have never gone online, according to the ONS report.

The average rate of non-use for the UK was 10pc.

The ONS collected the data over the first three months of this year.

In total 321,000 people in Barking & Dagenham and Havering used the internet in the last three months, 93.3pc.

Over the last six years the number of people using the internet has grown steadily.

In London 1.1 million more people are now using the internet compared with 2012, when the ONS first began compiling this data. That’s an increase of 21pc.

The area covering Camden and the City of London has the highest internet usage with 97pc of residents having been online in the last three months. While Mid and East Antrim, in Northern Ireland, has the lowest usage, with just 74pc of people accessing the internet in the three month period.

The number of adults who have never used the internet is shrinking. Nationwide this figure dropped from 9.2pc in 2017 to 8.4pc this year.

At the end of 2017 Ofcom, the communications regulator, found more than one million homes in the UK did not have access to fast broadband.

This is classed as the minimum speed required to stream music and TV services such as Amazon and Netflix.

The government has pledged that by 2020 every house and business in the country will have 10Mbps-plus broadband speeds.