Thanks to Michael Casey for posting this on his flickr stream. Interesting, yes? Discuss…
BlogJunction
WebJunction’s niche in the blogosphere
Thanks to Michael Casey for posting this on his flickr stream. Interesting, yes? Discuss…
That means 41% of Americans are deep, heavy, pragmatic, or “rely on” users of mobile or participatory web. Wow. I guess this surprises me, even though I’m in that “top” eight percent.
I took the survey and I’m in the top eight percent. I’m not that surprised though since so many people are connected and using the internet in their daily lives. It seems like everybody at least has a cell phone these days.
Maybe I’m carrying over some old beliefs from our early WJ days when we were primarily focused on Rural and Small libraries. Certainly, this has been my experience as well, but I constantly try to remind myself that I live in a big city, with wireless everywhere, etc. Some of my colleagues in VT, for example, can’t get cell service that’s reliable and so they are not using twitter on mobile, etc.
Since I’m fairly new to WJ, I’m not sure what you mean by being “surprised”; could you elaborate? Did you expect higher percentages in the heavy users’ category? I did, in a way.
The results to me look like the digital divide is still alive, though maybe not so much in its original meaning. Since I started the MLIS program at the University of Washington, I’ve had a foot on each side of the gap—I struggle to keep up with what’s going on with the heavy users, but still work in a small town public library where a lot of patrons are still intimidated by the catalog computer. Then there’s my 85-year-old mother who’s not quite sure what the Internet is, and doesn’t really have a need to. At times I feel like I’m doing the splits! So yes, there’s quite a range of “connectivity levels”. What an intriguing time to be an information professional.
I agree with you Teresa. It’s such a great time to be a librarian! I was actually surprised by the large overall number of people using connecting, mobile technologies. I suppose that for some the cellphone is commonplace, but I still have friends who are holding out! And, I always try to remember that I live in a large urban center – not the same here as in the rest of the world.
I was thinking this morning on the way to work how amazing it is that the social web has really exploded in the last several years, and that WJ has grown up (at least into a toddler) during that time. It’s a great time to work with a social networking project too.
Thanks for comments, all.