Not all tech users sold on benefits, study says

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released results of a broad telephone survey on the technology people have, how they use it and what they think about it. The study, which ran between February 15 to April 6, 2006, found adult Americans were broadly divided into three groups (margin of error of Â±2%): 31% are frequent users of multiple technologies, 20% are moderate users and the remainder have little or no access to the internet or cellphones. The study, which queried 4,001 U.S. adults, including 2,822 internet users, also found deep divides within each group when it came to their opinion of technology, from wholesale adoption to apathy and mistrust. "Once we got done, we were surprised to find the tensions within groups of users with information technology," said John Horrigan, Pew's associate director.

Frequent users of mobile and internet technologies were fairly evenly split among four groups:

"Omnivores," who are predominately male and embrace the most gadgets and services and participate in activities such as blogging or managing their own Web pages.
"Connectors," who consider the internet and cell phones useful communication tools.
"Productivity enhancers," who mostly use the internet at work.
"Lacklustre veterans," who use high-tech communication tools because they must and aren't enamoured with it.

Moderate users were divided between cellphone-carrying "mobile centrics" and "connected but hassled" people, who find technology burdensome. Of the remaining respondents, 34% had little access to communication technology and 15% were "off the network," with neither cellphones nor internet access. Where do you find yourself in all of this?

News source: CBC News