According to a recent Pew Internet & American Life Project publication, I am probably a Web 2.0 Omnivore. The fact that I’m writing this and have written many posts on this and other blogs could be enough to put me into that group. I have also published videos on multiple streaming servers.
I own a PalmPilot, portable MP3, digital voice recorder and a couple of cell phones. If you call the phone at my office, the message says you should email me.
I don’t use Twitter. Those people must be in the top 0.8%.
You can probably read a lot of different things into this report. For one thing, 15% of us don’t have a cell phones or Internet connection. The average age of this group is 64. I suspect this group will continue to shrink if only from attrition. At age 64 I hope to have an email implant with retinal display and global wireless connectivity. If Moore’s law continues to play out, I’ll have a computer the size of a credit card that is so advanced it will treat me like a house pet. I can’t wait.
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What’s interesting is how your “level” can change rapidly if you don’t keep up with the latest advances.
My Dad was a high school math teacher in the late 70′s/early 80′s. Back then, the math departments became the default computer teaching departments, so he was a first adopter and on the cutting edge. (Those were the days of our color CoCo with a phone cradle modem and cassette tape drive). He used to program basic DOS games for us to play and he understood how things worked and how to fix them when they didn’t.
Fast forward 30 years. My Dad (in his early 60′s) just got a new laptop last week and so far, he’s played 232 games of Minesweeper with it. With his last computer, he never bothered to figure out how to connect to the internet (and it was probably too old and slow anyway). For years, my parents have been using a device called “Pocketmail” to send and receive emails (but no attachments). My Dad doesn’t know the difference between a browser and an ISP and barely understands the difference between email and the internet.
Although my parents do have only cell phones and no land lines (they live in a travel trailer full time and travel the country constantly, so cells made sense a while back for them), so far my Dad hasn’t figured out his WiFi. He’s probably going to go with dial-up this summer. Today, I only half jokingly told him that he used to be 20 years behind and now he’s only 10 years behind.
He aspires to learn to Skype with the built-in web cam so that this fall, he and my mom can talk to and see my kids real-time when they get back to Florida and can sign up for Road Runner high speed internet. That will probably move him from his current “light but satisfied” group to the “connected but hassled group.”
As for me, I’m probably a “Connector” – not quite yet at “Omnivore” status despite my palm pilot and cell phones (no land lines at our house).
My dad upgrades his computer every two years so he can play solitaire faster. His system bench mark has always been how fast the cards tumble at the end of the game.
My parents got high-speed last year. Before that, the only thing available in their area was dial-up. With their new digital camera, they are using Flickr, but mostly they just forward those emails that all retired people seem to forward to each other.
I am amazed at the number of people that ask my dad technical questions even though he has no background in technology. If you are a new “middle-of-the-road” tech user and live in the right location, you may be way ahead of most of the people in your demographic.
How things change in one month. My parents are now successfully internet connected, although only with dial-up. They are BOTH web surfing and emailing daily now, with their most major problem being determining who gets to use the computer when. They have viewed photos we’ve shared, seen video of our kids on You Tube, and even goggled the address for the camp the kids are attending in a few weeks.
Last week, my mom “messed up” her default email screen as she experimented clicking buttons, then my dad altered it further trying to “fix” what she had done. The next day, my mom successfully restored the screen by herself (no frantic phone calls to one of her kids) and taught my dad what she had learned.
This week, my mom talked about shopping online (HUGE for her) and making digital photo albums. My dad is ready for gmail and protopage.
I’d say that in the last month, they’ve moved from “light but satisfied” status to “inexperienced experimenters.” They may even have the potential to move past the “connected but hassled” category into the “mobile centrics” or even the “productivity enhancers” category.
Oh yeah – and my mom is now reading all the tips and comments on this blog. I wonder how long it will take her to find THIS comment?! (-: