The real-world view of Web 2.0

New research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project has some fascinating statistics on how Americans use technology.

According to A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users (PDF download), half of all American adults are only occasional users of modern information gadgetry, while 8% are avid participants in all that digital life has to offer.

This is no better illustrated than by this chart from the 65-page report:

10groups

Interesting to see that half of those Americans are just not connected to the new Web 2.0 world:

[…] Fully half of adults have a more distant or non-existent relationship to modern information technology. Some of this diffidence is driven by people’s concerns about information overload; some is related to people’s sense that their gadgets have more capacity than users can master; some is connected to people’s sense that things like blogging and creating home-brew videos for YouTube is not for them; and some is rooted in people’s inability to afford or their unwillingness to buy the gear that would bring them into the digital age.

That looks like a very clear real-world view.

So many opportunities to educate people.

(Via TechCrunch)

Neville Hobson

Social Strategist, Communicator, Writer, and Podcaster with a curiosity for tech and how people use it. Believer in an Internet for everyone. Early adopter (and leaver) and experimenter with social media. Occasional test pilot of shiny new objects. Avid tea drinker.

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