Homo Connectus: The Impact of Technology On People's Everyday Lives

HOMO CONNECTUS
The impact of technology on

people’s everyday lives
Lee Rainie – Director Pew Internet Project

University of North Florida
November 5, 2007
Seven hallmarks of
the new digital ecosystem
which Homo Connectus
inhabits
Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 2

Hallmark 1
Media and gadgets are

ubiquitous parts of
everyday life

Home media ecology - 1975
Product Route to home Display Local storage
TV stations phone TV Cassette/ 8-track

broadcast TV radio
broadcast radio stereo Vinyl album
News mail
Advertising newspaper delivery phone

paper
Radio Stations non-electronic
Tom Wolzien, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co

Home media ecology – now
cable TiVo (PVR) VCR
TV stations DSL TV
Info wireless/phone radio DVD
“Daily me” broadcast TV PC Web-based storage
content iPod /MP3server/ TiVo (PVR)
Cable Nets broadcast radio stereo PC
Web sites satellite monitor web storage
Local news mail headphones CD/CD-ROM
Content from express delivery pager
individuals iPod / storage portable gamer MP3 player / iPod
Peer-to-peer subcarriers / WIFI cell phone pagers - PDAs
Advertising newspaper delivery phone cable box
Radio stations camcorder/camera PDA/Palm game console
game console paper
non-electronic storage sticks/disks
Adapted from Tom Wolzien, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co

Hallmark 2
The internet, especially

broadband connectivity, is
at the center of the
revolution

Internet and broadband adoption
1995-2007
80% All internet - 142 mill.

70%
60%
50%
40%
Broadband at home- 96 mill.
30%
20%
10%
0%
5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
r -9 r -9 - 9 - 9 r - 9 - 0 - 0 - 0 r - 0 - 0 - 0 r - 0 r - 0
a a ar ar a ar ar ar a ar ar a a
M M M M M M M M M M M M M

Hallmark 3
New gadgets allow people

to enjoy media, gather
information, and carry on
communication anywhere.
Wirelessness is its own
adventure.
Wireless connectivity 2004-2007
Connect to the internet wirelessly
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
2004 2005 2006 2007

Mobile devices – college student
ownership
• 88% of college students own cell phones

• 81% own digital cameras
• 63 own MP3 players
• 55% own video cameras
• 55% own laptops
• 27% of college students own a PDA or Blackberry
----
• 77% of college students play games online

Hallmark 4
Ordinary citizens have a

chance to be publishers,
movie makers, artists,
song creators, and story
tellers

Content creation
55% of online teens

have created their
own profile on a
social network site
like MySpace or
Facebook
----
20% of online adults
have such profiles

SNS Profiles: Dashboards for social life

Content creation
51% of young adult

internet users
have uploaded
photos to the
internet
----
37% of all users
have done this

Content creation
39% of online teens

share their own
creations online,
such as artwork,
photos, stories, or
videos
----
have done this

Content creation
33% have created or

worked on webpages
or blogs for others,
including those for
groups they belong
to, friends or school
assignments
----
13% of online adults do
this

Content creation
33% of college
students keep
blogs and
regularly post
----
have a blog

Content creation
27% of online teens

report keeping
their own personal
webpage
----
have their own
page

Content creation
26% say they remix

content they find
online into their
own artistic
creations
----
9% of online adults
have done this

Content creation
19% of online young

adults have
created an avatar
that interacts with
others online
----
9% of all adult
internet users
have done this

Content creation
15% of young adult

internet users
have uploaded
videos to the web
----
8% of all adult
internet users
have done this

Content creation by age
90
80
70
60
Percentage
50
40
30
20
10
0
Ages 12- Ages 18- Ages 30- Ages 39- Ages 49- Ages 61- Ages 70+
17 29 38 48 60 69
Internet users Total population

Hallmark 5
All those content creators

have an audience.

Accessing new information
content
55% of young adult

internet users use
video-sharing sites
---
33% of all adults go
to such sites

content
54% of college
students have
read blogs
---
36% of all adults do
that

content
44% of young adult

internet users
seek information
at Wikipedia sites
---
36% of all adults use
them

content
14% of young
internet users
download
podcasts
---
12% of all adults do

Hallmark 6
Many are sharing what they

know and what they feel
online and that is building
conversations and
communities

Information sharing and
evaluation
37% of young adult

internet users
have rated a
person, product,
or service online
---
32% of all adults
have done so

evaluation
34% of online young

adults have
tagged online
content
---
28% of all adults
have done that

evaluation
25% of younger internet

users have
commented on
videos
They also post
comments on blogs
and photos
---
13% of all adults have
commented on
videos

Hallmark 7
Online Americans are

customizing their online
experiences thanks to
Web 2.0 tools

Information customization
~ 40% of younger internet users customize news and other
information pages; ~ half are on specialty listservs

Information customization
~ A quarter to a third of younger internet users get RSS feeds

What all this connectivity does to
us
• It changes our relationship to

information and media
• It changes our relationship to
each other

Life changes in 10 important
ways – 1
Volume of info grows

– the “long tail” of information
expands – Chris Anderson

ways – 2
Velocity of info increases

– “smart mobs” emerge
– Howard Rheingold

ways – 3
Venues of intersecting with info and

people multiply
– place shifting and time shifting
occur
-- “absent presence” and “present
absence” become regular features
of human interactions

ways – 4
Venturing for info changes

– search strategies and search
expectations spread in the search-
engine era

ways – 5
Vigilance for info transforms –

attention is truncated (“continuous
partial attention”) and elongated
(deep dives by amateur experts)

ways – 6
Valence (relevance) of info improves

– search gets better
-- “Daily Me” and “Daily Us” get
made – Nicholas Negroponte
---
… the variety of info increases,
especially for heavy users
– they bump into news
ways – 7
Vetting of info becomes more “social”

– credibility tests change as people
ping their social networks
-- internet becomes “personified” in
people’s social networks – Dr.
Google, Pastor Yahoo

ways – 8
Viewing of info is disaggregated and

becomes more “horizontal”
– new reading strategies emerge as
coping mechanisms
-- Allen Renear UI-Champaign-
Urbana

ways – 9
Voting on and ventilating about info

proliferates as tagging, rating, and
commenting on material is enabled
– collective intelligence expands –
Pierre Levy and Henry Jenkins
-- “5th Estate” emerges - William
Dutton

ways – 10
inVention of info and the visibility of

new creators is made easier
– the read/write, Web 2.0 world
facilitates participation
-- privacy and identity are scrambled

Hallmark 8
Everything is going to
change in the coming
years

The J-curve laws
• Computing power doubles every 18 months –

Moore’s law
• Storage power doubles every 12 months – disk
law
• Communications power doubles every 2-3 years
with improvements in fiber optics and
compression – Gilder’s law
– Spectrum power is enhanced with efficiency
improvements in spectrum allocation and use

Home media ecology – future
now
TV stations phone/DSL TV
Info wireless radio DVD
content iPod /MP3 server/ TiVo (PVR)
Cable Nets broadcast radio stereo PC
Web sites satellite monitor web storage
Local news mail headphones CD/CD-ROM
Content from express delivery pager
individuals iPod / storage portable gamer MP3 player / iPod
Radio stations PDA/Palm game console
game console paper
Satellite radio non-electronic storage sticks/disks

Home media ecology – future
Info Virtual worlds –

TV stations phone/DSL
wireless
TV
radio Second DVD Life
content
Cable Nets
Mirror worlds iPod /MP3 – Google
broadcast radio stereo
server/Earth
PC
TiVo (PVR)
Augmented reality
Web sites
Local news
satellite
mail
monitor
– Smart
headphones
web storage
door knob
CD/CD-ROM
Life-logging
Content from
individuals
express delivery pager
iPod / storage – Nike and
portable iPodMP3
gamer link
player / iPod
Radio stations PDA/Palm game console
game console paper
Satellite radio non-electronic storage sticks/disks

Thank you!
Lee Rainie
Director
Pew Internet & American Life Project
1615 L Street NW
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20036
Lrainie@pewinternet.org
202-419-4500

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HOMO CONNECTUS

The impact of technology on

Lee Rainie – Director Pew Internet Project

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 2

Media and gadgets are

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 3

TV stations phone TV Cassette/ 8-track

Advertising newspaper delivery phone

Tom Wolzien, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 4

Adapted from Tom Wolzien, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 5

The internet, especially

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 6

80% All internet - 142 mill.

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 7

New gadgets allow people

Connect to the internet wirelessly

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 9

• 88% of college students own cell phones

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 10

Ordinary citizens have a

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 11

55% of online teens

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 12

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 13

51% of young adult

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 14

39% of online teens

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 15

33% have created or

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 16

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 17

27% of online teens

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 18

26% say they remix

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 19

19% of online young

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 20

15% of young adult

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 21

Internet users Total population

All those content creators

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 23

55% of young adult

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 24

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 25

44% of young adult

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 26

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 27

Many are sharing what they

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 28

37% of young adult

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 29

34% of online young

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 30

25% of younger internet

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 31

Online Americans are

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 32

Homo Connectus November 5, 2007 33

~ A quarter to a third of younger internet users get RSS feeds