[Air-l] On-line behaviour

[John Veitch]

Hello Karen

For me the much more interesting study is a new sort of "digital 
divide", where people have access to the Internet, but they don't really 
have "on-line behaviour" except swapping jokes and pictures, and doing a 
Google search twice a month.

There is some research on literacy, based in Canada but presently 
occurring in about 20 countries around the world. I've personally been 
involved in collecting some of the data here in NZ. There are about 20 
questions asked about computer use. Interestingly people were not asked 
if they received any list mail. Nor were they asked if they had joined 
any social networks. Nor were they asked if they had published some 
personal web pages. In my view this shows that the people who compiled 
the questions are about 5 years behind the times.

However that may not be the case. I interviewed about 60 people. I know 
5 of those were functionally illiterate. (This is NZ, our educational 
standards are good, and I'm shocked.) Over 80% had Internet access in 
the home. Not a single person mentioned list mail, or social networks or 
personal web pages. As I said these were no specific questions, but 
there was a question something like "Do you do anything else on the 
Internet that we haven't talked about."  People mentioned genealogy, and 
music making, and specialist business applications. A bit late in the 
day I started to ask an exploratory question, mentioning lists and 
social networks, but never got a positive response.

So I conclude the prime online behaviour is NOT being online, even when 
people have personal access. Such behaviour confounds me. It's not at 
all what my expectation would anticipate.

This confirms with a much bigger number the small group I observed using 
their computers in Bryndwr, Christchurch in September 2003.
http://www.ate.co.nz/internet/bryndwr.html

When you begin to understand this, the implications are enormous. 
Non-participation explains very easily the long tails we see on lists 
and in social networks. On LinkedIn for instance the mean number of 
connections per member is less than 5 and depending on how many people 
with zero connections there are, the mean may be much lower than that. 
LinkedIn might have 8 million members, but they are not Linked In.

On Ryze 5% of the members attract about 50% of all the attention. 
Another 10% get about 46% of the attention, leaving 4% of attention for 
all the rest. Mostly that 85% of the membership would be best described 
as not participating. Hence the long tail.

What disturbs me about this is the failure of "Digital Strategy" in 
Canada, in New Zealand and I'm sure elsewhere. The digital superhighway 
was the dream in the mid 1990's. What we got was the "world wide wait" 
as most of you will remember, and concern about the "digital divide". We 
certainly have a digital divide. But it's not the one we expected to have.

If the digital superhighway can be said to exist, we need to ask why 
most of the computers connected to it are controlled by people who have 
no idea how to benefit from using that terminal. This understanding has 
led me to found the Global Engagement Trust. Here are three links.
The GET Wiki: http://get.wikispaces.com/
My GET page: http://www.ate.co.nz/global/index.html
John O'Brien's GET page: http://www.irmstrategies.com/global/index.html

Regards
John





Karen Stepanyan wrote:
> This mailing list should be the right place to ask whether you are familiar with studies of on-line behaviour.
John Stephen Veitch
http://www.ate.co.nz
Should we be talking? Can I help?
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