[Infowarrior] - Poll: Pre-teens own Congress on Net expertise

[Richard Forno]

 Poll: Pre-teens own Congress on Net expertise

12/28/2006 11:42:27 AM, by Ken Fisher
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061228-8512.html

A new poll by Zogby International and 463 Communications examines how
Americans feel about the Internet and its place in American life. The
results simultaneously underscore the importance ascribed to the Internet
while also highlighting how little faith Americans have in the government's
technical acumen. The nationwide poll was conducted via telephone with 1,203
adults at the beginning of this month, and carries a margin of error of +/-
2.9 percentage points.

On the importance of the Internet, one-third of respondents said that they
believe that the Internet is a greater invention than the printing press,
and two thirds said that within 10 years, there will not be a location on
earth from which it will be impossible to access it. They've obviously never
been to West Virginia!

Perhaps more interesting, a whopping 83 percent of respondents said that
they believe that the average 12 year old knows more about the Internet than
do members of Congress. The view is apparently non-partisan, with 86 percent
of Democrats and 85 percent of Republicans placing their bets on the kids.
The only groups with a significant difference of opinion were those of
retirement age (75 percent backed the kids‹a slight dip), and "Asians." The
latter group said that members of Congress have the know-how, to the tune of
67 percent. Notably, the study attempted to replicate the ethnic make-up of
the United States, and as such, there were not enough Asian respondents in
the total group to make that category statistically sound, according to
Zogby.

The poll also found that many Americans are expecting the "next Bill Gates"
to hail from somewhere other than the United States. 21 percent of
respondents thought that the US would be home to the next technology leader,
with 22 percent choosing Japan and 27 percent choosing China. Countries
placing below the United States were India (13 percent) and Russia (2
percent), with 14 percent unsure. I can't help but think of my high school
years, when the advice du jour was to learn Russian. These days it's Chinese
getting all the love, but I digress.
Citizen news video warming, but not hot

Despite all of this forward-looking thinking, respondents were mostly
pleased with traditional news coverage, with 70 percent saying that they
would rather watch an evening news report than a "citizen video of a news
event" (that news, news "vlogging"), which was picked by only 20 percent.
Curiously, these numbers showed interesting fluctuations among different
groups. Clearly the young exhibit more interest than the old in "vlogging,"
and this isn't that surprising. One of four people aged 18-49 indicated that
they would rather watch citizen video, while one-in-six aged 50-64 chose
that same option. One in ten retirement-age respondents said they would opt
for citizen video.

When looked at through the lens of education, it appears that the more
education one has, the more likely they are to be open to citizen video.
Respondents having completed college picked citizen video 27 percent of the
time, compared to 14 percent for those with high school diplomas. Even those
with "some college" were markedly more interested, at 24%.

What's it all mean? I must say that I find it surprising how doubtful all
Americans seem to be regarding their leadership's technical acumen. Among
technologists, of course, this is to be expected, but if Joe Americana also
feels this way, then it's quite distressing considering that Joe and pals
are also helping to re-elect these people. The only logical conclusion is
that Joe and friends consider the Internet (and other technical matters) to
be rather minor compared to other issues, but then doesn't this really urge
us to consider how we can get enough technical expertise on the Hill to
properly evaluate technology issues? Clearly if one-third of respondents
believe that the Internet is as great an invention as the printing press,
then it's an issue that should be important to the populace.

Early next week Nate will have a report on 2007's technology leadership in
Congress, and the results are quite alarming, really.

Stay tuned.