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30% of Americans Aren't Ready For the Next Generation of Technology
sciencehabit writes: "Thanks to a decade of programs geared toward giving people access to the necessary technology, by 2013 some 85% of Americans were surfing the World Wide Web. But how effectively are they using it? A new survey suggests that the digital divide has been replaced by a gap in digital readiness. It found that nearly 30% of Americans either aren't digitally literate or don't trust the Internet. That subgroup tended to be less educated, poorer, and older than the average American."
technology is always progress, and never, ever, going backwards in any possible way.
Because in my circles, it's the smart people who don't trust the Internet.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
And those who are extremely educated fall into the "don't trust the Internet" group quite easily. How many security exploits do we need before people stop trusting in various internet services? But not trusting it doesn't mean we stop USING it! We simply alter our actions on the internet.
I mean, really. We *know* that (most) grandmas ain't exactly surfin' like crazy. They're terrified of viruses, and all the other associated buzzwords, and were uncomfortable around new technology before that. Certainly there are exceptions -- but I'm not at all surprised to hear that the demographic mentioned isn't exactly spearheading the digital revolution.
Who around here trusts "The Internet" ???
Wouldn't blind trust be considered digital illiteracy?
Your comment is way funnier the way you put it, but I trust the Internet as a transmission medium -- so long as I'm using solid encryption. Unfortunately, between reports of NSA backdoors in NIST encryption algorithms, and SSL bugs, "solid" has become a somewhat relative term.
Excuse me. Time to fire up my Tor client over OpenVPN using pufferfish through an SSL tunnel.
nearly 30% of Americans either aren't digitally literate or don't trust the Internet.
I have been out here in e-space for decades.
You are a fool if you trust any kind of technology blindly, especially a technology that gives every moron with free access to a terminal somewhere. This goes for the POTS too.
Because I'm sure going to trust that guy with the east-Indian accent telling me over the phone to install a remote access tool to my computer. Which actually happened to me 3 something weeks ago.
You are digitally illiterate if you "trust the Internet."
--
BMO
I'll let you fill in your own descriptions.
WTF, How are those two descriptions combined into one group of people to count ?
How can you trust the internet? It keeps telling me it will make my penis bigger yet has failed to deliver.
I'm not ready to embrace new Windows 8 technology. I'm not ready to manage my finances on an insecure Android phone. I'm not ready to spend uncounted hours ingesting inane trash on social networks (unless there's a member of the opposite sex involved, naturally). I'm not ready to browse a web dominated by animated ads and twisted news. I am a obviously a Luddite.
but the ring, the ring must be completed!
The majority of that 30% of Americans will either be dead soon, or from a social-economic background in far greater need of being addressed than their lack of technological savvy.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
"A survey....." by whom? The ITIF: a think tank, "As a result, the mission of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is to help policy makers at the federal and state levels to better understand the nature of the new innovation economy and the types of public policies needed to drive innovation, productivity and broad-based prosperity for all Americans." , and "Prior to joining the FCC, Mr. Horrigan was Associate Director, Research, with the Pew Internet & American Life Project for nine years, where he studied the online behavior of broadband internet users, mobile internet users, and consumers of other leading edge information technology. "Earlier in his career, Horrigan was a staff officer for the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy at the National Research Council. He also served as press secretary and senior legislative assistant to U.S. Congressman Jake Pickle (D-Texas)." QED. Links? look it up..... In closing, there are unmotivated people in the US? Really?
Because In my circles, its the people that understand that trust isn't absolute that are the smart people.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
the internet is made up of people, and people inherently cannot be trusted.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
70% of Americans are ready for the next generation of technology!
nearly 30% of Americans either aren't digitally literate or don't trust the Internet.
... that less than 30% of Americans are mature enough to use the Internet.
... 50 % of americans are below average. Oh noes!
84% of statistics are made up on the spot. 79% of people know THAT!
Wow, that high? I would have expected it to be lower.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
For that to be true, over 70% of Americans must be BOTH digitally literate AND trust the Internet, which is impossible since anyone who trusts the Internet is not digitally literate.
Will people ever be ready for stuff like replicators, site to site transporters and Holodecks? Let alone going to far off civilizations at speeds faster than light and meeting wierd aliens.
I guess they could cope with com-badges
I for one, don't trust the Internet, and haven't since they let you civilians on to it back in the 1970s.
But I do trust Internet2, which we don't let you on, and bask in it's fiery 100 GB/s pipes and 40 GB/s outlets while you squabble in the dark in sub 20 MB/s speeds.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Just ask Miss Teen South Carolina
...to send everything it knows about me to government agents and hackers. My primary security practice is being too boring to care about.
If you don't know, that isn't necessarily always the case. The average of 1, 1, 1, 2, 10 is 3. In that case, 80% are below average.
Well yeah, I do know. Because I went to school and stuff. Your pulled-out-of-your-posterior-to-make-some-sort-of-vague-point sample set is 5. The population of the U. S. is currently hovering around 316,165,718. The distribution you posit would suggest that 80% of the population ranks below earthworms. Any idiot knows a sufficiently large sample set is necessary to derive any meaning from the concept of average. Your suggestion is ridiculous. I wonder which side of the line you fall on? :-)
Resistance is futile.
Well what the heck does that mean? Don't trust the Nigerian prince that claims to have 2 billions dollars? Don't trust that popup advertisement that claims your computer is infected with a virus?
Don't trust the internet is the most important rule of the internet.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I'm more concerned about my searches - looking for things on the internet scares me. What you search for can define what you're thinking about more than what you find. For example, just today I was asked by a website, based on a search I ran, if I had metastatic prostate cancer. Umm, (long pause here because I don't have a prostate) no.
Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
There's plenty of technologically literate people in India who can handle working with the new technology that Americans can't bother to learn to use. If the Americans don't want those jobs there are plenty of others who do.
And I still don't trust it.
-- Alastair
Not being a very social animal, I don't have much use for being constantly in touch with people, so I've never had much justification to buy a complicated phone. But those who are the other way now have an entire world of computing that only partly intersects the general internet I'm familiar with.
When I called someone on my phone who was a few years younger, she seemed baffled - even a little angry - that I called instead of texted. It never even occurred to me.
And people now just assume everyone has access to GPS everywhere they go, but I only ever need directions somewhere a few times a year, so why would I pay for mobile internet all year-round just for those rare occasions when I can figure out where to go with my own brain?
Most of the mobile scene seems unnecessary and pointless, but people act like it's an essential part of life. So I feel like part of the past. The music I cherish has become completely irrelevant, for one thing. And yet I still don't have a single gray hair on my head or wrinkle on my face.
So, in true old man fashion, rather than accept my oldness, I will simply act as though it's the world that's crazy and not me. It's idiotic to pay hundreds of dollars a year for mobile internet unless you spend most of your time on the go. It's idiotic to want to be in constant contact with everyone you know. Everything I can't afford, you're an idiot for having.
Now get off my lawn, so I can listen to my real music (Nirvana) so's yous stupid kids can listen to your autotuned elevator music.
In completely unrelated news, according to the 2010 US Census,almost 30% of American Fathers Aren't Ready For the Next Generation
The fact that so many never use the internet could be because the internet does not actually give them anything they want. 30% sounds like a lot - if that is accurate - but how does that compare to how many that don't use a smartphone or watch TV? Even if you are not a luddite, you may find the price is far too high, considering the benefit you would get from it. Internet is a very much like cable TV, where you get access to an impressive 500 channels, but most of them just run near-identical soaps and reality shows, which you can get for free on BBC already, in some form. Why pay for that on top of your licence fee?
Out of the maligned 30%, I'd like to see a breakdown separating the merely technology-challenged versus people who have seen enough stories about identity theft, .gov surveillance, stalking, and all the other downsides to the net and just said, "Fuck it, it ain't worth it." There is, believe it or not, a sub-group of ex-internet users who are by no means Luddites. They simply just say "No!" to all the crapvertising, crime, and wasted time.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
And the technically literate are even more afraid of the internet because they know how shoddy a lot of the code running it is.
Not to mention the sheer crapulence of the average website (all javascript links, flash abominations, piss poor use of graphics, loading of javascript from multiple domains most of which is not even used etc. etc. etc.)
And let's not get started on how utterly dreadful the usability is on a lot of sites.
I've gone from being an early adopter to refusing to do a lot of things online (i.e. banking, paying bills etc.). It's not worth dealing with the complete suckage.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
I bought Dark Souls on Steam during the summer sale last week. I mentioned this on Facebook. The next time I went to Kotaku to read a story it recommended a story about Dark Souls to me. Not the new sequel, but the one from years ago that I just bought. The article was from 2011. So it's not like it's a coincidence that a recent story matched up to my posted content.
Gives me the creeps.
I used to do a lot of web development and e-mail security, I do not trust the internet. Good on anyone who doesn't.
Nobody should trust the Internet. WTF?
I don't not trust the internet, but one has to be very prudent in verifying sources. There is a LOT of misinformation that get perpetuated around the net. Part of it is the armchair charlatans, the other are parties "planting" half-truths or outright lies to further their agenda with little fear of retaliation. There's a lot of wisdom to the saying "no one knows you're a dog on the internet".
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
I am skeptical of claims that people suffer from "digital readiness". I guarantee you they are perfectly capable of using the internet when it comes to porn. It's not like it requires years of schooling. Once someone has access to the internet there is no excuse for not becoming "digitally literate", other than a lack of motivation.
Proverbs 21:19
I trust the internet enough to pay my bills online. I also check my accounts online to make sure nobody has fsked with them.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
quantum key distribution
This uphill battle is essentially why Aaron Swartz hanged himself. People attributed it to the DoJ but gave the academic journal industry that he was fighting a free pass.
This is the clearest, most coherent argument in favor of Swartz's side I've ever read. Now I better understand the context of why his suicide matters. The whole "blame the USDoJ" thing didn't quite make sense to me. Adding in the extreme difficulty of trying to get access to research journals due to paywalls and other "closed-shop" barrier tactics of the academic journal world plus MIT's reluctance to challenge that culture and stand up for Swartz--now that make sense and gives me context. I wish someone had phrased this point in such a succinct manner when it all first erupted.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I'm not sure how the two categories relate. One could be fairly digitally literate and still see no reason to "trust the Internet" a given country is running. Or as Geroge W. Bush put it, the Internets. (On an unrelated side note, I never knew how much of a visionary Dubya was, not only was the Internets comment correct in the future, so is the thought that if we went into Iraq today we'd be greeted as liberators. Man of the future that one.
That's the one.
If an entangled pair of objects is shared between two parties, anyone intercepting either object alters the overall system, revealing the presence of the third party (and the amount of information they have gained).
I don't get this. How would the recipient know that what they've received is 'wrong'?