BT says we’re living in a technological utopia – Italians disagree
Advance information from the BT 21st Century Life Index, to be released in full in the next few months, shows a startling correlation between what people in 1998 hoped the internet would provide, and what they get from it today.
Ipsos MORI conducted 2,000 face to face interviews and compared the results with a similar exercise ten years ago. 46 per cent wanted instant access to travel timetables in 1998, and 43 per cent get their travel information online today. The figures for shopping are 36 and 41 percent respectively.
Banking (40 percent) was the largest single reason interviewees cited for going online. Almost 60 percent of Britons spend at least five hours a week online, but, intriguingly, internet usage growth has coincided with an increased stated preference for personal meeting over telephone contact.
Just over two-thirds of those interviewed preferred speaking face-to-face rather than using any technology to stay in touch, compared to only 51 percent ten years ago. However, 74 percent say the use the internet to stay in touch with family and friends, compared to 44 percent in 1998.
Ipsos MORI Director Alnoor Samji asked if this marks the demise of text messaging as we know it. “Consumers have steadily shifted their communications habits over the last 10 years from exclusively voice and mobile, to email on the move, as well as much greater interaction with social networking sites,” he said.
Italian survey
In Italy, Corriere della Sera reports a very different market. The ICT Monitor survey of 2,500 interviewees commissioned by Italian telecoms companies found computer ownership had risen from 46 to 60 percent between 2004 and 2007.
However, although broadband uptake has gone from 10 to 29 percent in the same period, online purchasing has risen from a mere 7 to 14 percent, and only 6.7 percent of Italians do their banking online. The survey found almost half the population hostile, indifferent or ambivalent to the web.
The article concludes that the breakthrough technology for Italy may be G-3 phones. Italians love their mobile phones and watch plenty of TV, and putting it all on-line may prove irresistible.
The survey did not, of course, even ask the most face-to-face people in earth whether they use the internet to stay in touch with friends and family. Any such question would elicit incredulous laughter.
