The Pew Internet and American Life Project initially found American adults to be broadly divided into three groups by their use of technology: 31 percent were elite technology users, 20 percent were moderate users, and the remainder had little or no usage of the Internet or cell phones.
Now, the elites, for instance, are almost evenly split into "Omnivores," who fully embrace technology and express themselves creatively with its tools; "Connectors," who use the Internet and cellphones as communications tools; "Productivity enhancers," who use technology to keep up with their jobs and daily lives; and "Lackluster veterans," those who use technology frequently but aren't thrilled by it.
The lackluster veterans keep using the decade-old technologies they started with, Pew's Associate Director John Horrigan said. A quarter of high-tech elites fall into this category, according to Horrigan, showing untapped potential for companies that can design next-generation applications to pique this group's interest.
Horrigan said that initially he believed that the more gadgets people have, the more they are likely to embrace technology, using Web 2.0 applications for generating and sharing information.
"Once we got done, we were surprised to find the tensions within groups of users with information technology," Horrigan said.
Moderate users were also evenly divided into "mobile centrics," who use the cell phone for voice, text messaging and even games, and "connected but hassled," who use technology but find it burdensome.
Mobile companies, he said, can target the mobile centrics with premium services, especially when faster wireless networks become available.
The study also found that 15 percent of all Americans have neither a cell phone nor an Internet connection. Another 15 percent use some technology and are satisfied with what it does for them, while 11 percent use it intermittently, and find connectivity annoying.
Eight percent — mostly women in their early 50s — occasionally use technology and might use more given more experience. They tend to use dial-up access and could become high-speed customers "with the right constellation of services offered," Horrigan said.
The original study of 4,001 U.S. adults, including 2,822 Internet users, was conducted by telephone Feb. 15 - April 6, 2006, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
