Category: Digital Culture

JISC has released Users' Trust in Information Resources in the Web Environment: A Status Report.

Here's an excerpt:

This study brings together the e-commerce, e-health and information trust literature to provide a broader picture of what is already known around issues of trust in the use of Web resources within Higher Education (HE). Herring (2005) believes the first aspect of teaching information seeking skills is to teach students how to evaluate the information they have found; he believes that "Information literacy is now regarded by governments across the world as a core educational and life skill, and schools have a key role to play in developing their student's information literacy" (Herring 2005: 91). The JISC JUBILEE project found that "Most students do not evaluate the information they retrieve electronically" (Banwell et al 2003). Rowlands et al (2008) found that young people are "unable to construct effective searches and evaluate the results. . . due to their lack of knowledge of the kinds of information content that exists." If there is an inability or lack of perceived need to evaluate Web resources, how are choices made relating to trust." Young people feel at ease in many virtual environments but this does not necessarily mean they are equally at ease in all virtual worlds, they are, however, acutely aware of the limitations and potential pitfalls surrounding internet use. Rather than being discouraged from over-dependence on the internet, what learners need are the tools to allow them to use the internet to their best advantages. These tools are not ICT skills, navigating a keyboard is vastly different from navigating the choppy waters of cyberspace (Pickard 2008). A key dimension of trust is the belief in ability; the expertise, skills or technical ability that another has in a certain area (Ridings & Gefen 2005). This aspect of the study focuses on identifying and assessing evidence to examine the choices individuals make based on trust and confidence within the Web environment.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society has released Next Generation Connectivity: A Review of Broadband Internet Transitions and Policy from Around the World.

Here's an excerpt:

Our most prominent initial findings, confirmed and extended in this final draft, were that U.S. broadband performance in the past decade has declined relative to other countries and is no better than middling. Our study expanded the well known observation with regard to penetration per 100 inhabitants, and examined and found the same to be true of penetration per household; subscriptions for mobile broadband; availability of nomadic access; as well as advertised speeds and actually measured speeds; and pricing at most tiers of service. Our study further identified the great extent to which open access policies played a role in establishing competitive broadband markets during the first-generation broadband transition in Europe and Japan, and the large degree to which contemporary transpositions of that experience were being integrated into current plans to preserve and assure competitive markets during the next generation transition.

The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration has released Digital Nation: 21st Century America's Progress Towards Universal Broadband Internet Access.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

• Broadband Internet access at home continues to grow: 64 percent of households have broadband access compared to 51 percent in October 2007.
• Notable disparities between demographic groups continue: people with low incomes, seniors, minorities, the less-educated, non-family households, and the non-employed tend to lag behind other groups in home broadband use.
• While the digital divide between urban and rural areas has lessened since 2007, it remains significant. In 2009, two-thirds (66 percent) of urban households and only 54 percent of rural households accessed broadband Internet service, compared to 54 percent of urban households and 39 percent of rural households in 2007.
• Overall, the two most commonly cited reasons for not having broadband Internet access at home are that it is perceived as not needed (38 percent) or too expensive (26 percent). Besides these value and affordability concerns, Americans also cite the lack of a computer as a major factor.  In rural America, however, lack of broadband availability is a more frequently-cited major reason for non-adoption than in urban areas (11 percent vs. 1 percent).
• Americans who do not use the Internet in any location most commonly cite insufficient value, or no need, as the reason.  In contrast,  households that have dial-up access to the Internet as well as households without any type of Internet access at home most frequently cite cost as the reason they do not have broadband access at home.
• Despite the growing importance of the Internet in American life, 30 percent of all persons do not use the Internet in any location.

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project has released The Future of the Internet IV.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The web-based survey gathered opinions from prominent scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers and technology developers. It is the fourth in a series of Internet expert studies conducted by the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University and the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. In this report, we cover experts' thoughts on the following issues:

• Will Google make us stupid?
• Will the internet enhance or detract from reading, writing, and rendering of knowledge?
• Is the next wave of innovation in technology, gadgets, and applications pretty clear now, or will the most interesting developments between now and 2020 come "out of the blue"?
• Will the end-to-end principle of the internet still prevail in 10 years, or will there be more control of access to information?
• Will it be possible to be anonymous online or not by the end of the decade?

The Global Information Industry Center at UCSD has released How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 20 different sources of information, from very old (newspapers and books) to very new (portable computer games, satellite radio, and Internet video). Information at work is not included. . . .

Hours of information consumption grew at 2.6 percent per year from 1980 to 2008, due to a combination of population growth and increasing hours per capita, from 7.4 to 11.8. More surprising is that information consumption in bytes increased at only 5.4 percent per year. Yet the capacity to process data has been driven by Moore's Law, rising at least 30 percent per year. One reason for the slow growth in bytes is that color TV changed little over that period. High-definition TV is increasing the number of bytes in TV programs, but slowly.

The traditional media of radio and TV still dominate our consumption per day, with a total of 60 percent of the hours. In total, more than three-quarters of U.S. households' information time is spent with non-computer sources.

Despite this, computers have had major effects on some aspects of information consumption. In the past, information consumption was overwhelmingly passive, with telephone being the only interactive medium. Thanks to computers, a full third of words and more than half of bytes are now received interactively. Reading, which was in decline due to the growth of television, tripled from 1980 to 2008, because it is the overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has released Information Economy Report 2009: Trends and Outlook in Turbulent Times.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Contents:

• Global and regional trends in the diffusion of ICTs such as fixed and mobile telecommunications, Internet, and broadband
• Ranking of the most dynamic economies in terms of increased ICT connectivity between 2003 and 2008
• Monitoring of the “digital divide”
• Survey of national statistical offices on the use of ICT in the business sector
• A review of the changing patterns in the trade of ICT goods
• A mapping of the new geography in the offshoring of IT and ICT-enabled services.
• Policy recommendations on how developing countries can reap greater benefits from ICT
• A statistical annex with global ICT data.

The Oxford Internet Institute of the University of Oxford has released The Internet in Britain 2009.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

One of the main challenges in creating a Digital Britain will be to change the perceptions of the third of the British population who choose not to use the internet, according to the latest in a series of Oxford University Surveys.

The Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS) 2009, published on 22 June 2009, shows that while most British internet users (84%) are extremely confident about using new technology and see the Internet as central to many activities, over half of non-users of the internet (57%) now distrust new technology more than they did before.

The survey, conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute, questioned 2000 people in 2009 and found that cost, a lack of access and a lack of interest were the main reasons that led to people deciding to stop using the Internet. OxIS 2009 provides a detailed breakdown of where the digital divide lies: twice as many people from higher than lower socio-economic groups use the Internet. Age too has a dramatic impact on digital choices with the proportion of Internet users between 25-54 increasing considerably since 2003, but not changing significantly for other age groups. The proportion of retired people going online has inched forward from 30% in 2005 to 34% in 2009. However, the gap between male and female users has nearly closed with 71% of men and 68% women now using the Internet; gaps in self-confidence between men and women, however, remain. 100% of students and 88% of households with children said they had access to the Internet.

OxIS 2009 concludes that the Internet is a valuable resource for people to find information, communicate with others, and find entertainment 'in ways that could well give advantages to them over those who choose not to use the Internet'. The 'Digital Britain Report' (published by the UK Government on 16 June 2009) contains pledges to provide universal access to a broadband connection, but according to OxIS Principal Investigator, Professor William Dutton, the heart of the matter is about persuading those who choose to exclude themselves. . . .

While users opt for the Internet as their most trusted medium, non-users or people who have stopped said they trusted television and radio the most. Non-users were most concerned about the negative aspects of online communication, with 86% agreeing that people can find personal information too easily online, as compared with only half of users. Over two-thirds (68%) of non-users said that there was too much immoral material online and nearly three quarters (71%) of non-users wanted greater government regulation of the Internet, as compared with 57% of users.

See also "Digital Britain: The Final Report."

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released Home Broadband Adoption 2009.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

An April 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project shows 63% of adult Americans now have broadband internet connections at home, a 15% increase from a year earlier. April’s level of high-speed adoption represents a significant jump from figures gathered by the Project since the end of 2007 (54%). . . .

The growth in home broadband adoption occurred even though survey respondents reported paying more for broadband compared to May 2008. Last year, the average monthly bill for broadband internet service at home was $34.50, a figure that stands at $39.00 in April 2009.

The growth in broadband adoption indicates that the economic recession has had little effect on decisions about whether to buy or keep a home high-speed connection. The Pew Internet Project’s April 2009 survey found that people are twice as likely to say they have cut back or cancelled a cell phone plan or cable TV service than internet service.

For the first time, the Internet had over one billion users who were 15 or older in December 2008.

Here's an excert from the press release:

The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the highest share of global Internet users at 41 percent, followed by Europe (28 percent share), North America (18 percent share), Latin-America (7 percent share), and the Middle East & Africa (5 percent share). . . .

China represented the largest online audience in the world in December 2008 with 180 million Internet users, representing nearly 18 percent of the total worldwide Internet audience, followed by the U.S. (16.2 percent share), Japan (6.0 percent share), Germany (3.7 percent share) and the U.K. (3.6 percent share).