February 24, 2004
Mixed Feelings... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes."
The Pew Internet and American Life Project has just released another one of its reports, this time on how rural Americans use the Internet in comparison to their urban and suburban counterparts.
The easy statistic to quote is that about 2/3's of the adults in cities and suburbia use the Internet, while only half of the adults in rural areas are online. The question is, why?
For starters, rural communities enjoy a higher percentage of Senior Citizens, and while many are tech-savvy, still more are perfectly content to let this particular parade pass by. The other generations have a different problem. The income levels in rural communities are well below that of their citified counterparts, and Internet service isn't delivered on a sliding scale.
At the same time, once on the Internet, the differences fade.
--
Half of the 200 million American Internet users go online daily. And while rural Americans are more likely to seek spiritual and religious information, they are less likely to book a travel reservation or look for a place to live.
It seems to me that most of these differences can be explained as a function of place and space. The shear mass of cities make the search for an apartment challenging, but why would that be needed in your own small town? Doesn't everybody pretty much know everybody? Which also figures into online dating. City dwellers are almost twice as likely to give it a try.
The statistic which surprised me didn't have to do with how rural Americans used the Internet, but rather how they felt about it. It turns out that some 50% of them have "mixed feelings" towards computers and technology, nearly double the percentage reported by urban and suburban users.
But now we get into the power of numbers. While a lesser percentage of urban and suburban users have mixed feelings about computers and technology, there are a whole lot more of them.
Which led me to ask: And just how many people would that be?
--
I studied the report, and I did the math, and roughly speaking, over 40 million adult Americans have mixed feelings about computers and technology - yet they're hooked up and online anyway. That's right, 40 Million people all doing something they have mixed feelings about.
While the more experienced users are more enthusiastic, Internet use is so new, you can't discount the high response of early adopters coupled with the expected non-opinions of a whole lot of people who don't feel one way or another.
It seems to me that this one very small corner of the study actually generates far more questions than answers. These people aren't Luddites - they've adopted the technology. Are they naturally cautious? Or are they wise? There's no doubt in my mind that these are a very interesting group of people.
No doubt some of these mixed feelings will go away once the fairly new users get accustomed to the Internet, but I would not discount the possibility that their ranks will swell should we experience some cataclysmic digital catastrophe. Thus far, the Internet has performed well with only hints of problematic behavior. Yet how we feel about things has a great deal to do with how we behave.
It's good see a technical survey which recognizes feelings. It's amazing what you can learn when you scratch the surface.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
Back to Five Minutes List
