A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users

Fully 85% of American adults use the internet or cell phones – and most use both. Many also have broadband connections, digital cameras and video game systems. Yet the proportion of adults who exploit the connectivity, the capacity for self expression, and the interactivity of modern information technology is a modest 8%.

Fully half of adults have a more distant or non-existent relationship to modern information technology. Some of this diffidence is driven by people’s concerns about information overload; some is related to people’s sense that their gadgets have more capacity than users can master; some is connected to people’s sense that things like blogging and creating home-brew videos for YouTube is not for them; and some is rooted in people’s inability to afford or their unwillingness to buy the gear that would bring them into the digital age.

These findings come from the Pew Internet Project’s typology of information and communication technology (ICT) users. The typology categorizes Americans based on the amount of ICTs they possess, how they use them, and their attitudes about the role of ICTs are in their lives. Ten separate groups emerge in the typology.

Some of the most interesting cohorts are composed of people who own and operate high-tech tools, but aren’t necessarily wild about the role that gadgets play in their lives.

“Two groups of technology users have a kind of ‘tech-gadget’ remorse,” noted John B. Horrigan, Associate Director at the Pew Internet Project and author of the report. “They have more than a fair share of digital appliances. But they aren’t all that satisfied with the flood of information or pervasive connectivity comes along with these communication goods and services.”

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