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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 A new survey suggests that the digital divide has been replaced by a gap in digital readiness.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.
Many "grandmas" have embraced the Internet.
For example, this study from two years ago says that more than half of senior citizens now use it. They often don't know how to use it well, granted, but they're using it. And many of them *do* know how to use it well.
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.
Most senior citizens (those 65 or older) became senior citizens since 1995, when the web started taking off. Many became senior citizens after 2005, when it had mostly saturated middle-class households.
It's not so much that granny embraced the internet, it's that she embraced the internet and then aged into being "granny".
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.
Precisely.
If you don't pay your bills on the Internet, you are a fool. Why? Because your bills are being paid online anyway, even if you are idiot enough to send a check, which is the most dangerous thing you can do with your financial info.
You write a check, with all the info needed on it to completely wipe out your checking account (and savings, too, if you have overdraft "protection") on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope that couldn't more clearly scream "THERE IS A CHECK IN HERE" unless you literally wrote that on the outside, and it goes through many hands before getting to its destination which isn't even the company you are paying. If you look at most national account bills (credit cards, cell companies, cable providers, etc.) they all go to the same few places (usually somewhere in the middle of the country like IL) called "lock boxes" where a minimum wage worker opens your envelope, scans your check digitally, transmits the info to the respective banks, and completes the transaction electronically anyway. Oh, and they are supposed to shred it afterwards. You hope.
The real problem is attacks on back end systems, or assault on terminals, like what happened to Target. Most of the time (almost all) fraud that happens on indivdual online accounts is by someone they know - usually a spouse or child. So if you don't trust them, or can't outwit them with passwords on your system, you have a much larger personal issue than lack of security on the Internet.
I trust the Internet as a transmission medium -- so long as I'm using solid encryption.
So you do not trust the Internet as a transmission medium.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!