Types of Users of Information and Communication Technologies
According to the latest Pew report, A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users:
Fully 85% of American adults use the internet or cell phones - and most use both. Many also have broadband connections, digital cameras and video game systems. Yet the proportion of adults who exploit the connectivity, the capacity for self expression, and the interactivity of modern information technology is a modest 8%.Fully half of adults have a more distant or non-existent relationship to modern information technology. Some of this diffidence is driven by people’s concerns about information overload; some is related to people’s sense that their gadgets have more capacity than users can master; some is connected to people’s sense that things like blogging and creating home-brew videos for YouTube is not for them; and some is rooted in people’s inability to afford or their unwillingness to buy the gear that would bring them into the digital age.
These findings come from the Pew Internet Project’s typology of information and communication technology (ICT) users. The typology categorizes Americans based on the amount of ICTs they possess, how they use them, and their attitudes about the role of ICTs are in their lives. Ten separate groups emerge in the typology.
The report identifies these ten typologies as: elite technology users (31% of American adults, including “omnivores,” “connectors,” ‘lackluster veterans,” and “productivity enhancers”); middle-of-the-road technology users (20%, including “mobile centrics” and “connected but hassled”); and, those with few technology assets (49%, including “inexperienced experimenters,” “light but satisfied,” “indifferents,” and those who are “off the network.”).
Where do you fit in among information and communication technology users according to Pew’s typologies? Take the Pew Internet Project ’s quiz at: www.pewinternet.org/quiz. Where do your learners fit in? What are some possible educational implications of this report?
Soources:
A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users - press release
A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users - full report