a group quite small not just due to enthusiasm or other inherently distinguishing personal characteristics, but who had sufficient access to computers of any kind whatsoever at the time
I keep taking tries at this point, but something I saw recently and need again to dig out puts it very well:
The spread of computing has been effected through a bait-and-switch, selling it as if commodification were somehow inherently democratizing.
Over my lifetime-to-date we've gone from having even a single 8-bit microcomputer in a middle-class home was a weird, niche thing, to obligatory compute ubiquity for most daily activities regardless of one's interest or desire.
This has been, historically speaking, extraordinary. But people tend not to acknowledge it, let alone account for it.