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:

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)