31% of US tech-savvy

A study released Sunday found that 31% of Americans are "highly tech-savvy" people for whom the Internet, cell phones and handheld organizers are more indispensable than TVs and old-fashioned wired phones.

They spend, on average, a total of $169 a month on broadband Internet service, satellite or cable TV, cell phones and Web content. That is 39% higher than the national average, $122. Some 29% of them have broadband connections, compared with 17% of everyone else. About 7% of technology aficionados have canceled their landline phone and gone all-wireless. Only 2% of nontechies have done that. Despite being plugged in to the Internet and other sources of data more often, only 13% of the tech-savvy crowd feels overwhelmed by information. By contrast, a sense of information overload plagues 25% of the rest of the population.