Slashdot Mirror

Despite the proliferation of tech toys and work devices in people's lives, the gap between the tech-savvy and the techno-confused keeps growing, a monumental failure of our arrogant and elitist tech industries. It's hard to recall any industry which has so abused, neglected and exploited its customers and survived. But it is interesting to track -- as a brand-new survey does -- just how wide the gap is, and how differently Americans cope with it, by age, ethnicity and geography. Why, for example, would midwesterners grasp technology so much better than northeasterners? We are still, at heart, a fix-it country, given the chance, something much of the tech world seems to have forgotten.

When things malfunction, the vast majority of Americans try to fix it themselves. (And no wonder. Tech Support is synonymous with anxiety and indifference). Almost half -- 47 percent -- say the first thing they do when a piece of equipment fails is try to repair it. Another 21 percent have a friend or family member look at it. Only nine percent take a broken purchase back to the place where they bought it. Then there are the 3 percent of Americans who say that when something breaks, they simply buy a new something. This last group may be rich, but it's also smart; its members are most likely tech veterans who've spend years struggling with customer service, poring through complex warranties, waiting on hold for support and assistance, an oxymoron if ever there was one.

The survey of nearly 3000 adults, commissioned by American Demographics magazine and published in its March issue, reveals other intriguing details. Though fewer than half of Americans with computers say they fully understand how to operate them and all their features, there are differences by region. Northeasterners are the most confused, Midwesterners the most computer-confident. When attempting to learn their way around a new purchase, 89 percent consult instruction manuals, poor saps.

Adults under 35 are, not surprisingly, more skilled at confronting tech problems. For example, 77 per cent of those surveyed age 18 to 34 are confident in their ability to operate their VCR, while 54 per cent of adults older than 35 said the same. Young adults are also more proficient, says the survey, when it comes to using cell phones, stereos, remote controls, microwaves and computers. Separated, divorced and widowed Americans are more involved with high-tech than other singles and married people. This may be because they have more time, or are perhaps more focused on using tech to connect with other people.

Television, meanwhile, continues its long reign as Americans' most beloved and comprehensible technology. In fact, for years TV has not gotten its due as one of the monumentally successful technologies of all time -- cheap, reliable, easy to use. More than 80 percent of respondents across the country understood how to work a TV better than a computer, something for the computer industry to ponder long and hard.

Asian-Americans use the Net more than any other group. On any given day, says American Demographics, more than half of all English-speaking Asians (53 percent) go online, compared to a third of all English-speaking whites (33 percent) and a sixth of all English-speaking blacks (17 per cent). On the other hand, 65 percent of African-Americans say they know and understand the features of their mobile phones, compared with only 42 percent of whites and 56 percent of Hispanics. One might have predicted, though, that women are more open to reading directions than men.

The survey is significant for several reasons. It shows that responses to tech are different among different age, geographic and ethnic groups. It confirms the idea that tech industries are peopled by smart geeks still too far removed from the ordinary concerns of average Americans. It reminds us that Tech Support is a scandal. It reinforces the notion of tech elites who alone understand how the new tools of the Info Age really work, while most people struggle to use them. New tech tools from computers to cell phones may seem ubiquitous, but in fact, they are not. Tech triggers different responses in different people, depending on where they live, how old they are, and even their race and ethnic origins.

Perhaps because science and technology have always been dominated by educated, sometimes arrogant elites, and are far beyond the attention spans or formats of conventional media, few scientific issues manage to attract the attention of large numbers of people. Gene mapping and genomics could change the nature of life itself, but few national political figures in the U.S. talk much genetics, or the impact of fertility drugs on kids and families. Spielberg raises some profound moral issues involving A.I. in his new movie, drawing a number of critical raves but proving a disappointment at the box office. And Hollywood hasn't yet even heard of nano-technologies. The emerging exception appears to be global warming, which Americans are suddenly very worried about. Maybe this is the beginning of a new era for science and politics.

This concern about global warming is significant, especially in light of the fact that the government's existing environmental policies (along with growing perceptions of technological and cultural imperialism) are making the U.S. once again the most resented country in the world. Already high on the agenda of Western Europe and a cause on U.S. college campuses, this could be the first in a series of techno-political issues that will rise up in the 21st Century. Issues like genomics will morph from gee-whiz cover stories in Time to very real concerns for individuals.

Most Americans are now aware of global warming, says a comprehensive report cited in American Demographics magazine, even though significantly fewer express concern or understanding about its impact.

In August 2000, the Harris poll asked Americans about their beliefs concerning global warming and, more specifically, about the relationship between temperature changes and forest fires. Many more than in previous surveys said they believed that global warming exists and is a serious environmental issue, although only 35 percent believe it was directly responsible for increasing forest fires in the United States.

In l997, 67 percent of Americans surveyed believed that increased carbon dioxide and other gases released into the atmosphere would, if unchecked, lead to global warming and increasing average temperatures. By last year, the figure had risen to 72 per cent. Even though they weren't aware of any specific or urgent impac on their own lives, and thus weren't particularly alarmed, nearly half thought that global warming should be treated as a "very serious" problem. In fact, only 13 percent of Americans said global warming wasn't a serious problem, a record low.

But science and the environment are becoming among the planet's hottest political issues. President Bush touched off a firestorm when he refused to sign the Kyoto accord. Although the reaction in the U.S. was less pronounced, a March 2001 Time/CNN poll found that two-thirds of Americans think the President should develop a plan to reduce the gas emissions that may contribute to global warming.

The U.S. has largely remained reluctant to address science through politics no matter how serious the issues. Big media political coverage tends to focus attention on scandal and confrontation, away from explanations of issues like global warming, or the equitable distribution of technology. Although they differ on certain scientific and environmental issues, neither of our two increasingly similiar dominant American political parties pay much attention to technological issues, or have anything resembling a scientific ideology or agenda.

When a serious matter like medical research involving stem cells from frozen embryos arises, politicians worry at least as much about religious support as they do about what scientists advise.

One might think members of Congress would be up in arms at the growing control of genetic research by a handful of bio-tech corporations; instead, there's hardly any debate about it at all.

My prediction: global warming will become the first issue of science and politics that captures the imagination of large numbers of American voters and becomes a national political issue (one on which the President definitely seems to have taken the unpopular side.) Why? Because it's a tactile phenomenon; people can feel that the weather is changing. They can see pictures of penguins dying in Antarctica. They read that skin cancer rates are rising.

Unlike more abstract scientific issues like genetics (which may become a highly visible political issue, but which isn't yet), or technologically-related social issues like intellectual property and copyright, even the myopic American political and media system, which focused for nearly two codependent years on Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, will have to start paying attention to global warming.

You can take your Tech Slump and shove it, according to some intriguing new statistics about Net use in the March issue of American Demographics Magazine. In the last year alone, the number of Net users shot up 30 percent. The days of the so-called Digerati are numbered (they will not be missed) as poorer, working-class Americans thunder online in amazing numbers. (Read More)

As recently as three years ago, studies showed that the majority of Net users were similiar -- high-income, tech-savvy, mostly white, male and very career-minded. They constituted a highly tech-centered subset of the population, a distinct techno-elite.

Their understanding of and experience with technology was radically different from that of most Americans, few of whom were online. Included in this group were the people literally constructing the elements of the computer revolution, and building the Net and the Web. There was consequently a powerful class element to computing -- poor, older and blue-collar people were, by and large, not involved.

That has changed, suddenly and dramatically. Despite media reports of a tech slump, computer and Net use is exploding, and among all age groups and class, racial and ethnic categories. As many suspect, the much-hyped tech slump has mostly hit poorly run, ill-conceived dot.coms, not mainstream technological use or growth.

And boy, has the Net gone mainstream:

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, 56 percent of the U.S. population, nearly 154 million peoople, accessed the Net in the month of November, 2000 alone. This represents a whopping 30 percent increase over the previous year alone.

The average age of the Net user, reports ZDNet, is now 39 years, and rising. At the same time, their average education -- 38 percent hold a college degree -- is falling.

So is their socio-economic status. One of the dominant characters of tech culture has been it's affluent, educated, tech-centeredness. No longer true. The fastest-growing segment of Web newcomers are Americans over 55 years old with working-class incomes, older members of minority groups, blue-collar workers, and people with decidedly non-tech interests and backgrounds. The new generation of wired Americans, says American Demographics, looks "increasingly like the folks who cruise your local Wal-Mart." From the surveys, they are clearly drawn online by e-mail, other messaging systems, and especially, entertainment and related communities.

These new figures don't mean that all poor people actually have computers or are even online. Members of the underclass -- especially minorities -- continue to lag behind when it comes to access to computing. But the divide is definitely shrinking, and faster that all but a few starry-eyed visionaries ever predicted.

This means that in the United States, Net users are no longer a monolithic group with anything resembling a common view, either of the Net, technology or other political issues. There are so many different people of different backgrounds using the Net in different ways that the very idea of a typical Net user -- or a digital citizen -- has vanished.

Despite that, the tech core -- the geeks, nerds, programmers, designers will almost surely continue a separate entity, shaping and and influencing computing and the evolution of the Net and Web.

But clearly, there are other significant constituencies online now as well, and the class differences are interesting. The newcomers are different from the first generation of Net users, primarily because they aren't as interested in the underlying technology, but see the Net much as they see TV, a focal point for varied activities.

There are other differences as well. In fact, says Nielsen, last May the number of women online surpassed the number of men for the first time. And Harris Interactive reports that the online community has grown by more than 900 per cent over the past six years.

This new reality will change the political and economic environment surrounding the Net. It will be a lot tougher for politicians to demonize cyberspace as a nest of theives and perverts now that many of their constituents are regularly online. Nor can Net users be dismissed as an arrogant elite.

The new American Demographics data shows some surprising trends -- the poorer the user, the more time they are apt to spend online. Why? Because many upscale Americans are Web-surfing vets who have bookmarked their favorite sites, and know how to use search engines efficiently. Nielsen//NetRatings says that Internet users now frequent an average of only 10 sites per month, down from 15 just one year ago. While on those 10 sites, they are digging deeper, reading more pages than they used to.

Another class factor is Net work access -- those who lack the ability to surf the Web at the office (blue collar workers in particular) are more inclined to go online at home. Another socioeconomic difference is that more affluent Net users go online to gather information, access services or data, while poorer Net users are more likely to go on the Net for amusement or entertainment.

The study has enormous political and economic implications. Vast potential new markets are coming online for businesses, despite all of the hysteria about the dropping NASDAQ. These numbers make it more, not less, likely that the Net will soon have an impact on new forms of retailing, and on the political system. It means the entertainment industry has bigger problems than Napster. Issues like copyright and intellectual property will move beyond colleges and into the broad population, as these newcomers are particularly interested in accessing entertainment information and content online.

The much ballyhooed Digital Divide isn't quite bridged. But it appears to be growing inevitably smaller. And like it or not, the Digerati will soon be rubbing elbows with the hoi-polloi.

A series of new studies of Napster users suggests everything you've been reading about music file-sharing systems is baloney. You're not thieves and pirates, it turns out, but marketing pioneers and music lovers quite willing to pay for music. These new stats suggest that file-sharing could have enormous implications for the selling of content, culture and information online, none grasped by dunder-headed corporations like the record labels. They are also a reminder not always to believe what you read. (Read more).

According to the January issue of American Demographics, a magazine which hardly supports radical copyright-infringers, music sites like Napster have created "powerful new opportunities for music marketeers." Despite the best efforts of the greedy record companies and a few recording stars -- Metallica and Dr. Dre come readily to mind -- to alienate a new generation of music lovers, recent figures prove that file-sharing services actually generate sales and put more money in artists' pockets.

This has enormous implications for those making movies, publishing books, or creating any kind of saleable entertainment. It suggests that the Net may work best as a three-step process: first connecting customers with culture, then generating interest in cultural and informational offerings, then keeping track of their tastes through sophisticated new digital marketing research. Theoretically, file-sharing approaches could go beyond shopping to stimulate interest in education, business, even politics, if the music experience is any indicator. And it sure ought to be.

The relationship between new decentralized software programs -- Napster, Freenet, Gnutella, P2P -- and such issues as copyright infringement, artists rights and conventional retailing is complicated. Legal, political, educational and other institutions haven't begun to sort through them. But clearly the music industry's panicky and greedy overreaction will prove one of the most dunder-headed, short-sighted responses in recent business history. The industry couldn't have been more off-base, dishonest or greedy.

Nearly 75 percent of college students have downloaded music from the Net, 58 percent of them using Napster, according to a recent study by Greenfield Online, a Connecticut research firm, and YouthStream Media Networks. Nearly two-thirds of the 1,135 college students surveyed say they download music as a way to sample music before buying it. The proliferation of online music is introducing consumes to artists they don't know, in almost precisely the same way department stores offer samples of food, perfume and other retail items. A survey by Yankelovich Partners for the Digital Media Association found that about half the music fans in the U.S. turn to look for artists they can't or don't hear in other venues, like radio. Nearly two-thirds of those who downloaded music from the Web say that their search ended in a music purchase. Music labels should have been donating money to Napster users, not threatening to sue them and chase the site off of college campuses.

And the much-libeled Napster users are dedicated music buyers, quick to reach for their wallets. Jupiter Research says it found that 45 per cent of online music fans are more likely to have increased their music purchases than online fans who don't use Napster. The Jupiter study of Napster users found that 71 percent of users say they're willing to pay to download an entire album.

Interestingly, reports American Demographics, the Jupiter Study of Napster users found that 71 percent of those who use the site said they were willing to pay to download an entire album. But in a Greenfield Online survey of 5,200 online music shoppers, nearly 70 per cent say that they have not paid -- and will not pay -- for digital music downloads. This suggests that subscription-based services may be more likely and successful than a per-song fee system.

This potentially revolutionary model for marketing culture is about to be dismantled by the new partnership between Napster and Bertelsmann, which is giving the file-sharing site more than $50 million to develop software that will charge users for music. Bertelsmann says it will keep a part of Napster "free," but watch for yourself to see how quickly it shrinks.

These figures, remarkably, demonstrate that almost every assumption about the free music movement, reported in most media outlets and used as justification for a wave of new legislation and legal action like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, is dead wrong:

• Most music downloaders aren't thieves or pirates but music lovers willing to pay for music.
• Artists have made more money from this new generation of music lovers than they would have without them.
• The true significance of file-sharing wasn't an end to intellectual property, but an exciting new way to develop markets.
• Record companies and other corporations should be supporting file-sharing sites ratherthan hiring lobbyists and lawyers to intimidate, sue and enrage new and eager customers. College students have nearly universal access to broadband, and are tomorrow's mainstream consumers. The more information and culture they have access to, the likelier it is that they'll sample new venues, products and information.
• Evidently, file-sharing isn't a dangerous menace but an effective new method of disseminating -- and selling -- content, and culture. Aside from these new findings, the Napster experience also suggests that when it comes to dealing with the Net, businesses often have no idea what's good for them.

And oh, yeah. Don't believe what you read about yourself.

New surveys suggest that ubiquitous technological tools are killing off leisure time, especially for younger workers and students -- that would be you -- who are working longer hours, taking fewer and shorter vacations (when they do go away, they take their cells, Palms and laptops along) and say they are more stressed than any other segment of the population. Opportunistic employers aren't helping, actually encouraging employees to do personal chores on the Net -- from their desks. Wasn't technology supposed to free us from workplace shackles?

Americans for centuries have believed that new labor saving devices will free us from the burdens of the workplace and give us more time to ponder philosophy, goof off, explore the arts, and hang around with friends and family.

So here we are at the start of the 21st Century, enjoying one of the greatest technological boom times in human history, and nothing could be further from the truth.

The very tools that were supposed to liberate us have bound us to our work (and schools) in ways that were inconceivable just a few years ago. But technology almost never does what we expect.

Almost all of us -- especially the people reading this -- have less leisure time than ever. We work harder, take fewer vacations for shorter periods of time, report more stress than almost any other demographic group and find the boundaries between work and play increasingly blurred. Computing and communications technologies are destroying the idea of privacy and leisure.

According to a new study reported in the July issue of American Demographics magazine, as the distinctions between home and the workplace fade, more and more of us go online from our offices to buy the things and perform the tasks we used to do when we got home. At first, employers were wary of workers going on the Net. But they've learned to love and encourage it, since it keeps employees chained to their desks for longer hours.

In l999, the researchers report, 19 percent of the total population had Net access at work, compared with just seven percent in l996. Employers, who now expect workers to be available for longer periods, understand that they have to let them to do their chores online. At work, Net surfers go first to news, information and entertainment sites. Then they hit search engines, marketing/corporate sites, sex sites and retailing shopping sites, in that order.

But there's a huge trade off for this convenience. Inforum's l999 Survey from the MEDSTAT group, reports American Demographics, found that adults aged 35 and younger were the most stressed people in the population. Nearly seven in 10 said they were "somewhat" to "extremely" stressed, an astonishing contrast to adults over 65: 31 percent of them said they had almost no stress in their lives at all.

More than a third of adults under the age of 25 say they don't get enough sleep most or all of the time. No wonder. More than half of them report that they didn't have time to take a vacation, according to the Travel Industry Association of America. When younger people do travel, they don't take much of a break: 42 percent of travelers who go away for just a weekend are aged 18 to 34 -- the largest share of any single demographic group. Of course, maybe they have less disposable income or have young children they can't leave for long. But if you think about people you know in this age group, it's also obvious that they have trouble disconnecting from work, thanks mostly to technology, and they're also afraid to show employers that they're not indispensable. It may also be true that openly or not, more employers expect their workers to be around all the time.

Before the Net, cell phones and Palms, the lines between work and leisure time were markedly clearer. People left their offices at a predictable time, were often completely disconnected from and out-of-touch with their jobs as they traveled to and from work, and were off-duty once they were home. That' s no longer true. Even in a competitive job market, employers expect workers to put in longer hours and to be available almost constantly via fax, cell, e-mail or other communications devices. Bosses, colleagues and family members -- lovers, buddies and spouses too -- expect instant responses to voice-and e-mail messages.

Employers have thus begun to pay the small price of allowing their round-the-clock workers to shop and communicate online, found the AD study.

The American Demographic report validates the suspicion that corporatist employers are taking advantage of new technologies and of workers' anxieties to demand longer hours and increased productivity -- the very things new technologies were supposed to liberate people from.

Although there are no known studies relating to college students and their work hours, it seems they are also bound to their desks and dorms by environments in which faculty, friends and other members of the college community increasingly do their work online. Studies of time spent on instant messaging services would probably show staggering use. And research possibilities online are boundless.

Few of us manage to buck this trend, apart from some neo-Luddites. Half of all Americans now own a cell phone, and more than 46 per cent of pleasure travelers take their phones with them when they go away, reports the Travel Industry Association. More than 18 per cent take their pagers and 6 per cent their laptops, while 10 per cent check e-mail on vacation. Younger Americans are living in a hyperactive information culture.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 40 per cent of men worked more than 40 hours a week in l998, an increase of 5 percentage points in the last two decades. As for women, 22 per cent worked more than 40 hours aweek, compared with just 14 per cent in 1979.

So it's not surprising that a l998 General Social Survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found that more than 40 per cent of American workers say they come home from work exhausted, up from 36 per cent in l989. Young married couples report that they work an average 26 per cent more hours each year than they did 30 years ago.

Aside from long hours, the nature of work has changed. Economist and author Richard Sennett (The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism) and Joanne B. Ciulla (The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work), point out changes in the nature of work itself.

"Flexible" work projects, the growing number of part-time workers, and a culture that embraces and even celebrates continuous layoffs, down-sizings and re-engineerings have rendered almost everyone's work life stressful and unstable. Workers work harder and longer, move more often, change their work tasks more frequently, and are nevertheless constantly subject to dismissal or its threat.

This isn't what technology is supposed to be doing for us. New technologies, from genetic research to the Net, offer all sorts of benefits and opportunities. But when new tools make life more difficult and stressful rather than easier and more meaningful -- and we are, as a society, barely conscious of it -- then something has gone seriously awry, both with our expectations for technology and our understanding of how it works.