Play’s Republic

A Fox News piece yesterday pointed to a recent Pew Internet & American Life survey to make the claim that “nearly 50 percent of Americans have little use for internet and cell phones”.

The Pew survey, completed in 2006, interviewed just over 4,000 Americans to discuss their views on technology (primarily internet technologies and cell phones).  Of these 4,000 Americans, 31 percent fell into the “Elite” category of technology users (which is further broken down into “omnivores”, “connectors”, “lackluster veterans”, and “productivity enhancers”). 20 percent of users were considered “Moderate” technology users (”mobile centrics” and “connected but hassled”).  The remaining 50 percent were divided fairly evenly amongst the “Little to no Usage” group (consisting of “inexperienced experimenters”, “light but satisfied”, “indifferents” and “off the network”).

All of the individuals I asked to complete the survey, including myself, fell in the “omnivores” category, a group made up primarily of students in their mid-twenties (typically white males).  I would be curious to see what other people find when they complete the survey.  It would be interesting to know how we, as a class and as a graduate program, measure up next to the”majority” of America that the Pew survey found.

Full text of the article available at FOXNews.com: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270392,00.html 

Full text of the survey available at PewInternet.org:  http://www.pewinternet.org/quiz/index.asp