I know there's a lot of people who couldn't care less about technology and it doesn't bother me. My own sister doesn't know the difference between HD DVD and Blu-ray. I'm used to repeatedly explaining why a home movie I burned onto a CD-RW won't work in her DVD player. I've even got used to the dreaded tech support phone calls. "I'm at the local library, the computer is frozen and I can't find the power button!" She lives in a different world. Hers is filled with sheet music and instruments she's only had a couple of days with but can somehow play. Some people just have different interests and that doesn't make them any less intelligent than the rest of us. Be that as it may, some of the people in this clip really freaked me out. How could they not know what a social networking site is?
A little background before you watch, perhaps? A UK PR firm decided to conduct an IT survey in which they asked 1,000 people questions about technology. Nothing too difficult but sort of general knowledge questions like who is Bill Gates. The harder ones include, "What is a wireless dongle?" "What is phishing?" and "What is a pixel?"
Surprisingly, even the easier questions, such as "Who is Steve Jobs?" went unanswered. One fifth had never heard of him, 20 percent of people thought he was a soccer player, 10 percent thought he was a trade union leader, and the older gentleman at 3:28 looked genuinely insulted that he was being asked any questions at all. "Steve Jobs? I've never heard of the man," he declared. Or, my personal favourite part of his interview, "Phishing… If anyone of those [answers] is to do with this Internet or email, then tick that one."
"A quarter of respondents also did not identify Sir Tim Berners-Lee as founder of the Internet, with nine per cent believing he was head of MI5," said Lewis PR. "Six per cent thought he was an Arctic explorer and five per cent reckoned he was the first British astronaut into space." Six percent of people thoughtVHD – Virtual Hard Disk – was a sexually transmitted disease
To be fair, the Brits are not alone when it comes to ignorance in this area. The two American ladies at 1:47 knew who Steve was but were tripped up by Bill Gates' profession. Eventually settling on the answer, "Windows," the two knew that Bill lived in Seattle but couldn't name his company.
As for the two adorable French lasses at 2:37, "Very… little … bad English!" Unless their interviewer also had flash cards or visual aids, I think their interview can be discounted.
Watch below and tell us how you think your friends/spouses/family would do.
