Hello Everyone It's a long time since I've contributed here. Six years ago I visited the homes of 14 randomly selected people and took notes as they used the Internet. (I don't recommend that you try that.) Several important things seemed to come out of that. The most startling for me was the poor level of knowledge and the LACK of use. Also that Internet use was private, and that people felt uncomfortable using the Internet while being watched, and I felt uncomfortable being there. That report is here. http://www.ate.co.nz/internet/bryndwr.html At the time members of this forum disbelieved my results. The sample is too small! Well yes it was, nobody can argue against that. However, as I think I now show, six years ago I was on the correct track. I should have followed that more vigorously. The summary says: "My research suggests that it will be many years before people understand how the internet can make a real difference in their lives. They use it in a manner that ensures that little difference is made. Most people would struggle to use it for more than 2 hours a week, including email. Most people have just enough knowledge to send an email and to search for and find a web site. People are not joining listservs, and for the most part, they do not buy things on the Internet. An internet connected computer is much more complex than a VCR machine. We know that most people can't programme their VCR's, so in a nutshell that's the problem." Six weeks ago I asked several local people to do something online that I thought was simple and that most people would do easily. No response, nothing. That got me thinking about the 2003 work, again. I prepared a list of about 30 Internet behaviours, and asked people to check their machines when the need to do so, and to count the number of times these behaviours occurred. People had time to prepare their replies. I only collected NUMBERS from them, relevant numbers that they had chosen. I found most people were very keen to help, and worked hard to give me sensible numbers. The results were reported back by telephone. That conversation often revealed more information about why this person used the Internet in the way they did. It's important to note that the homes in which this work was done were selected randomly. However, the people who did the survey in each house were really volunteers. My request to them was that the "person who was most active on the Internet" should be the respondent.So the results should be heavily biased towards active use and towards the behaviour of the most knowledgeable users. It's therefore, very disappointing for me to see how little use is made of the technology. In particular, the feedback process, the self publishing possibilities of Web 2.0 technologies, seem to be used hardly at all. The failure of people to embrace social networks and social media surprises me. http://www.ate.co.nz/survey2009.html -- John Stephen Veitch http://www.ate.co.nz/internet/ http://www.openfuture.co.nz/ http://openfuture-network.ryze.com/
John: I can't say I fit in that majority if people aren't believing your results because of sample size. While I don't do this everyday, my significant other does tech support at a major university (to remain nameless) and comments on this all the time. I find it interesting that there is such a disconnect between the experiences of everyday computer users and those of us who are immersed in technology - we ourselves *don't* represent the mainstream and I think that can be easy to forget. I find as I teach in the classroom that I am easily the best computer person in the room - my students are not IT people they are taking gen ed classes in university and community college classes. The range I see varies from people who don't know the difference between a Mac and a PC (not kidding) to those who don't understand that the internet isn't a place on their computer. One student told me last week that his paper was saved "in" Microsoft Word - because that was the only way he understood how to retrieve the file - rather than on a network drive. The only reason he gets *there* is because that's how he was taught to save files. You must have done so pretty fast talking to get these people to let you watch them use their computers! Best of luck, Meryl On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 9:20 PM, John Stephen Veitch < john.s.veitch@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Everyone
It's a long time since I've contributed here. Six years ago I visited the homes of 14 randomly selected people and took notes as they used the Internet. (I don't recommend that you try that.)
Several important things seemed to come out of that. The most startling for me was the poor level of knowledge and the LACK of use. Also that Internet use was private, and that people felt uncomfortable using the Internet while being watched, and I felt uncomfortable being there. That report is here. http://www.ate.co.nz/internet/bryndwr.html
At the time members of this forum disbelieved my results. The sample is too small! Well yes it was, nobody can argue against that. However, as I think I now show, six years ago I was on the correct track. I should have followed that more vigorously. The summary says:
"My research suggests that it will be many years before people understand how the internet can make a real difference in their lives. They use it in a manner that ensures that little difference is made. Most people would struggle to use it for more than 2 hours a week, including email.
Most people have just enough knowledge to send an email and to search for and find a web site. People are not joining listservs, and for the most part, they do not buy things on the Internet. An internet connected computer is much more complex than a VCR machine. We know that most people can't programme their VCR's, so in a nutshell that's the problem."
Six weeks ago I asked several local people to do something online that I thought was simple and that most people would do easily. No response, nothing. That got me thinking about the 2003 work, again.
I prepared a list of about 30 Internet behaviours, and asked people to check their machines when the need to do so, and to count the number of times these behaviours occurred. People had time to prepare their replies. I only collected NUMBERS from them, relevant numbers that they had chosen. I found most people were very keen to help, and worked hard to give me sensible numbers.
The results were reported back by telephone. That conversation often revealed more information about why this person used the Internet in the way they did.
It's important to note that the homes in which this work was done were selected randomly. However, the people who did the survey in each house were really volunteers. My request to them was that the "person who was most active on the Internet" should be the respondent.So the results should be heavily biased towards active use and towards the behaviour of the most knowledgeable users. It's therefore, very disappointing for me to see how little use is made of the technology.
In particular, the feedback process, the self publishing possibilities of Web 2.0 technologies, seem to be used hardly at all. The failure of people to embrace social networks and social media surprises me.
http://www.ate.co.nz/survey2009.html
-- John Stephen Veitch http://www.ate.co.nz/internet/ http://www.openfuture.co.nz/ http://openfuture-network.ryze.com/ _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- J. Meryl Krieger Ph.D., Folklore & Ethnomusicology Associate Instructor, xxxxxx University Adjunct Instructor, xxxxx Community College
See, for example: Anigbogu, J. & Rice, R. E. (2001). Expectations and experiences of seeking infertility information via the Internet and telephone directory. In R. E. Rice & J. E. Katz (Eds.), The Internet and health communication: Expectations and experiences (pp. 121-143). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cheong, P. H. (2008). The young and techless? Investigating internet use and problem-solving behaviors of young adults in Singapore. New Media & Society, 10(5), 771-791. ======================================================= Ronald E. Rice Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication Co-Director, Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media President of the International Communication Association 2006-2007 Dept. of Communication, 4840 Ellison Hall University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020 Ph: 805-893-8696; Fax: 805-893-7102 rrice@comm.ucsb.edu http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/rice.php http://www.cftnm.ucsb.edu/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Meryl Krieger" <meryl.krieger@gmail.com> To: "John Stephen Veitch" <john.s.veitch@gmail.com> Cc: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 6:08 PM Subject: Re: [Air-L] Internet User Research
John:
I can't say I fit in that majority if people aren't believing your results because of sample size. While I don't do this everyday, my significant other does tech support at a major university (to remain nameless) and comments on this all the time. I find it interesting that there is such a disconnect between the experiences of everyday computer users and those of us who are immersed in technology - we ourselves *don't* represent the mainstream and I think that can be easy to forget. I find as I teach in the classroom that I am easily the best computer person in the room - my students are not IT people they are taking gen ed classes in university and community college classes. The range I see varies from people who don't know the difference between a Mac and a PC (not kidding) to those who don't understand that the internet isn't a place on their computer. One student told me last week that his paper was saved "in" Microsoft Word - because that was the only way he understood how to retrieve the file - rather than on a network drive. The only reason he gets *there* is because that's how he was taught to save files.
You must have done so pretty fast talking to get these people to let you watch them use their computers! Best of luck,
Meryl
On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 9:20 PM, John Stephen Veitch < john.s.veitch@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Everyone
It's a long time since I've contributed here. Six years ago I visited the homes of 14 randomly selected people and took notes as they used the Internet. (I don't recommend that you try that.)
Several important things seemed to come out of that. The most startling for me was the poor level of knowledge and the LACK of use. Also that Internet use was private, and that people felt uncomfortable using the Internet while being watched, and I felt uncomfortable being there. That report is here. http://www.ate.co.nz/internet/bryndwr.html
At the time members of this forum disbelieved my results. The sample is too small! Well yes it was, nobody can argue against that. However, as I think I now show, six years ago I was on the correct track. I should have followed that more vigorously. The summary says:
"My research suggests that it will be many years before people understand how the internet can make a real difference in their lives. They use it in a manner that ensures that little difference is made. Most people would struggle to use it for more than 2 hours a week, including email.
Most people have just enough knowledge to send an email and to search for and find a web site. People are not joining listservs, and for the most part, they do not buy things on the Internet. An internet connected computer is much more complex than a VCR machine. We know that most people can't programme their VCR's, so in a nutshell that's the problem."
Six weeks ago I asked several local people to do something online that I thought was simple and that most people would do easily. No response, nothing. That got me thinking about the 2003 work, again.
I prepared a list of about 30 Internet behaviours, and asked people to check their machines when the need to do so, and to count the number of times these behaviours occurred. People had time to prepare their replies. I only collected NUMBERS from them, relevant numbers that they had chosen. I found most people were very keen to help, and worked hard to give me sensible numbers.
The results were reported back by telephone. That conversation often revealed more information about why this person used the Internet in the way they did.
It's important to note that the homes in which this work was done were selected randomly. However, the people who did the survey in each house were really volunteers. My request to them was that the "person who was most active on the Internet" should be the respondent.So the results should be heavily biased towards active use and towards the behaviour of the most knowledgeable users. It's therefore, very disappointing for me to see how little use is made of the technology.
In particular, the feedback process, the self publishing possibilities of Web 2.0 technologies, seem to be used hardly at all. The failure of people to embrace social networks and social media surprises me.
http://www.ate.co.nz/survey2009.html
-- John Stephen Veitch http://www.ate.co.nz/internet/ http://www.openfuture.co.nz/ http://openfuture-network.ryze.com/ _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- J. Meryl Krieger Ph.D., Folklore & Ethnomusicology Associate Instructor, xxxxxx University Adjunct Instructor, xxxxx Community College _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Hi John, I am also conducting a research based on a user-centered approach and it inquires the internet on the everyday life. At the moment it has a small sample as well -in my case they are frequent users. I have struggled with the sample problem with a theoretical sample. I guess that I will have problems with this kind of methodology but currently I am more concerned with an exploratory research than with another one with generalization capacity. Another issue that I would like to highlight is the hardness of this approach, it is very time consuming, and it generates a huge amount of data, well perhaps it is due to the fact of frequent users. I also have combined online and offline techniques. Thanks Ronald for the papers, Roser Beneito-Montagut School of Computing, Multimedia and Telecommunications UOC (Open University of Catalonia) 2009/6/29 Ronald E. Rice <rrice@comm.ucsb.edu>
See, for example: Anigbogu, J. & Rice, R. E. (2001). Expectations and experiences of seeking infertility information via the Internet and telephone directory. In R. E. Rice & J. E. Katz (Eds.), The Internet and health communication: Expectations and experiences (pp. 121-143). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cheong, P. H. (2008). The young and techless? Investigating internet use and problem-solving behaviors of young adults in Singapore. New Media & Society, 10(5), 771-791.
======================================================= Ronald E. Rice Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Communication Co-Director, Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media President of the International Communication Association 2006-2007 Dept. of Communication, 4840 Ellison Hall University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020 Ph: 805-893-8696; Fax: 805-893-7102 rrice@comm.ucsb.edu http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/rice.php http://www.cftnm.ucsb.edu/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Meryl Krieger" < meryl.krieger@gmail.com> To: "John Stephen Veitch" <john.s.veitch@gmail.com> Cc: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 6:08 PM Subject: Re: [Air-L] Internet User Research
John:
I can't say I fit in that majority if people aren't believing your results because of sample size. While I don't do this everyday, my significant other does tech support at a major university (to remain nameless) and comments on this all the time. I find it interesting that there is such a disconnect between the experiences of everyday computer users and those of us who are immersed in technology - we ourselves *don't* represent the mainstream and I think that can be easy to forget. I find as I teach in the classroom that I am easily the best computer person in the room - my students are not IT people they are taking gen ed classes in university and community college classes. The range I see varies from people who don't know the difference between a Mac and a PC (not kidding) to those who don't understand that the internet isn't a place on their computer. One student told me last week that his paper was saved "in" Microsoft Word - because that was the only way he understood how to retrieve the file - rather than on a network drive. The only reason he gets *there* is because that's how he was taught to save files.
You must have done so pretty fast talking to get these people to let you watch them use their computers! Best of luck,
Meryl
On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 9:20 PM, John Stephen Veitch < john.s.veitch@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Everyone
It's a long time since I've contributed here. Six years ago I visited the homes of 14 randomly selected people and took notes as they used the Internet. (I don't recommend that you try that.)
Several important things seemed to come out of that. The most startling for me was the poor level of knowledge and the LACK of use. Also that Internet use was private, and that people felt uncomfortable using the Internet while being watched, and I felt uncomfortable being there. That report is here. http://www.ate.co.nz/internet/bryndwr.html
At the time members of this forum disbelieved my results. The sample is too small! Well yes it was, nobody can argue against that. However, as I think I now show, six years ago I was on the correct track. I should have followed that more vigorously. The summary says:
"My research suggests that it will be many years before people understand how the internet can make a real difference in their lives. They use it in a manner that ensures that little difference is made. Most people would struggle to use it for more than 2 hours a week, including email.
Most people have just enough knowledge to send an email and to search for and find a web site. People are not joining listservs, and for the most part, they do not buy things on the Internet. An internet connected computer is much more complex than a VCR machine. We know that most people can't programme their VCR's, so in a nutshell that's the problem."
Six weeks ago I asked several local people to do something online that I thought was simple and that most people would do easily. No response, nothing. That got me thinking about the 2003 work, again.
I prepared a list of about 30 Internet behaviours, and asked people to check their machines when the need to do so, and to count the number of times these behaviours occurred. People had time to prepare their replies. I only collected NUMBERS from them, relevant numbers that they had chosen. I found most people were very keen to help, and worked hard to give me sensible numbers.
The results were reported back by telephone. That conversation often revealed more information about why this person used the Internet in the way they did.
It's important to note that the homes in which this work was done were selected randomly. However, the people who did the survey in each house were really volunteers. My request to them was that the "person who was most active on the Internet" should be the respondent.So the results should be heavily biased towards active use and towards the behaviour of the most knowledgeable users. It's therefore, very disappointing for me to see how little use is made of the technology.
In particular, the feedback process, the self publishing possibilities of Web 2.0 technologies, seem to be used hardly at all. The failure of people to embrace social networks and social media surprises me.
http://www.ate.co.nz/survey2009.html
-- John Stephen Veitch http://www.ate.co.nz/internet/ http://www.openfuture.co.nz/ http://openfuture-network.ryze.com/ _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- J. Meryl Krieger Ph.D., Folklore & Ethnomusicology Associate Instructor, xxxxxx University Adjunct Instructor, xxxxx Community College _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
participants (4)
-
John Stephen Veitch -
Meryl Krieger -
Ronald E. Rice -
Roser Beneito Montagut