Although as a most connected country on the African continent, South Africa has a lower percentage of internet users, compared with middle-income countries in Latin America, a research finds.

Thirty-four percent of adult South Africans use the internet, compared with 51 percent in Columbia, according to the South African Network Society Survey, conducted by researchers at Wits University in Johannesburg.

Among the 66-percent South Africans who are not online, 50 percent non-users say they don't know what the Internet is and only 4 percent of them own a computer, the research shows.

One of the major barriers to internet access is English language literacy. According to the survey, about one in five adults do not read and write English easily and almost none of these people (three percent) use the Internet.

"Until the South African internet becomes much more multi- lingual, and until internet connection speeds are fast enough to easily enable access to voice and video content as well as text then millions of South Africans who should be part of the next wave of users are going to remain locked out," a press release from Wits University said.

Althgouh with a low percentage of Internet users, access to Internet has more than doubled in the last four years, according to the survey which is based on face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of 1,589 South African adults in rural and urban areas.

The survey predicts that more than half the population will be online by 2014 and two-thirds by 2016.