Wells Fargo has been doing some research about digital literacy. Apparently we all fall into one of three groups.
Digital Adults - people who use advanced online tools for daily tasks, interaction and entertainment
Digital Novices - people with a general understanding of online tools who use them to manage basic tasks, but don’t interact with others online or manage complex tasks on the web
Digital Teens - who fall in between novices and adults?
In the UK we have 10,000,000 people who are not connected to the Internet. I guess they are Digital Babies?
The “Adult Group,” digitally speaking, is not twenty-somethings but thirty-somethings. While twenty-somethings led in the use of advanced online tools for entertainment, with such activities as watching television online and social networking, thirty-somethings are more likely to use advanced online photo and video technologies, career networking services, and financial management services.
A similar pattern emerges with banking and managing finances online.
The survey apparently shows that Youth is loosely correlated with digital adulthood and that digital sophistication generally declined with age.
This is all interesting stuff but it totally ignores the main thing that determines the type of Internet use – education. This applies to all ages.
I suspect this PR research is more to do with getting people to the Wells Fargo site, to find out their digital age, than to extending our understanding about the segmentation of Web use. Dick Stroud
3 comments:
Good survey. As people grow, their net dependency reduces, I feel. Moreover, as technology advances, it becomes difficult for the senior lot to keep track of it.
I believe this completely. I know that for me, technology is everything.
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Hi Dick,
I agree with your take on the Wells Fargo research. Unbiased survey information I've found useful on internet usage across the ages comes from The Pew Research Institute on the Internet and American Life at www.pewinternet.org. One caveat: It's only U.S. research.
Eric Schubert
Ecumen
www.changingagingblog.org
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