British laggards told to embrace their digital futures
Dad's tech army limbers up
Posted in Management, 27th November 2009 14:09 GMT
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The BCS has launched a website for technology laggards who are failing to do their duty by not feeling the benefits of an information-driven society.
The Chartered Institute for IT, formerly known as the British Computer Society, reckons only 20 per cent of the UK population are "information-savvy citizens".
BCS president Elizabeth Sparrow said: "Unless all members of society are made aware of how they can access and use information in their daily lives, the significant proportion of Britons who are failing to realise the benefits of information technology will persist.
"This is not just a question of access: information-savvy citizens also know how to use information and information technology to their advantage."
Sparrow also warned that a third of respondents failed to take even basic security measures online.
The BCS found 23 per cent of respondents believed information technology had not improved their lives.
The website - "savvycitizens.bcs.org" aims to educate these citizens of the future. It has sections on safety, wellness, communication, citizenship, environment, culture, commerce and work. In true Web 2.0 style many of the sections are empty and surfers are encouraged to add their own suggestions.
The "savvy citizen" is still more likely to be male than female, and aged between 18 and 44.
In other findings, the BCS reckons that 60 per cent of Brits have used video on demand and 15 per cent have published their own material online - or 8.97 million Brits using blogs and forums to post content, which sounds like a lot to us.
Researchers spoke to a demographically-balanced sample of 500 UK citizens aged 18 to 65+. ®
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COMMENTS
Spare us from these useless reports!
Oh god save us from the evangelising 'tards who are only after ensuring that their cushy niche has some justification.
The world got by fine without blogs and ar*efa*e updates about how Sheila just got her visit from aunt flo. There is nothing here for my 70 yr old father who has no interest in "tech". heres a clue... some people DONT want! it really is that simple! I really wonder if our society is now unable to function without the input of some attention seeking sad sacks who have to blog about every uninteresting aspect of their uninspiring lives.
Isn't it a shame that there isn't the same interest in dealing with the farcical pricing regime that exists that ensures Market one exchange customers pay far more money for far less service... usually in areas with a depressed economy. Thats the area that needs addressing. sort out OFCOM and BT's too cosy relationship, and bring some equality across the board.. then you might see more people joining the digital throng... until then - for many - its just another expense that is just not viable.
Hand grenade because the academics need one underneath them for failing to see the underlaying problems.
fun!
I've got 99 problems but computer illiteracy isn't one.
Bless the BCS
......how do they propose that these laggards access this website!?!
Surely an offline promo campaign would be of far greater use
so much fail
its hard to know where to start
some people cant bloody read how are they supposed to learn how to operate a computer then?
/thinks back to pictograph keyboards on acorn computers in junior school
and the thing is some people just dont get it seriously. to them a computer or any form of digital technology is witchcraft and must be burned
Dont you just love statistics !
Firstly, the figures with demographics starting at age 18 lose about 25% of the 60 million population, so that makes _about_ 6.7 million not 8.9 million. (And that's simple arithmetic not maths by the way ;) )
Secondly, the judgement 'had not improved their lives' will be a balance, not 'there is nothing I like about I.T.' (And that's simple english language by the way ;) )
Thirdly, since when have computer geeks _ever_ been qualified to understand what real people want ?????
Oh, I'm 54 and earn my living writing software, and my wife works from home on a quad-cpu system system with about 2TB of storage.
Our problem is the cr_p state of the BT network out in the countryside which makes it very difficult for a large percentage of the population to actually realise those cr_p statistics of the Internet's power which modern (young, wet-behind-the-ears) software authors expect everyone to have.
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