Matthew Ingram hails:"The latest Pew study into how people use the Interweb. These studies are useful in part because the Pew Internet & American Life Project does such a thorough job with them — you know they weren’t cooked up by marketing types to sell more banner ads.
"The latest Pew study into how people use the Interweb. These studies are useful in part because the Pew Internet & American Life Project does such a thorough job with them — you know they weren’t cooked up by marketing types to sell more banner ads."
Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean "these studies" weren't "cooked up" by "types" with their own vested interests, and with potentially more wide ranging impacts than the simple sale of banner ads.
Forty-eight million American adults have posted content to the Internet, was the Pew assertion almost a year ago.
But how could Pew be so sure? Pew obviuosly did not communicate with 48 million American adults. No, Pew relied on telephone interviews of a mere 1931 Internet users done by Princeton Survey Research Associates International between November 29 and December 31, 2005.
Do 1931 telephone interviews really signify what 48 million people did or did not do, even if a "non-profit" organization is behind the assertion and not a "for-profit" corporation?
According to the survey questionnaire accompanying the Pew report last year, 35% of the survey sample of 1931 American adult users of the Internet reported posting content to the Internet. Pew then decided to extrapolate the survey respondents to “all (millions and millions of) Internet users” and to make (jump to) its own conclusions that “overall, 35% of Internet users posted online content, that comes to 48 million American adults.”
Does Pew's modus operandi really support such definitive declarations?
Pew continues to believe so, and many continue to believe in Pew's "generous" extrapolations.
In "A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users," designed to assess "Web 2.0 users and non-users," Pew is now definitively declaring that:
49% of Americans only occasionally use modern gadgetry and many others bristle at electronic connectivity.
Pew is once again making its national assertions about behaviors and mindsets of the totality of the American populace by extrapolating from a very small number of telephone interviews: 4001 this go around, conducted a year ago.
Pew expresses 95% confidence, plus or minus, in its own extrapolations.
Pew says that it "does not engage in advocacy," but also indicates that its mission includes "advancing policy solutions." But is there really a difference between "advocating" and "advancing" in the policy arena?
Pew, in fact, describes its "policy work" as engaging:
The foremost thinkers, leaders, researchers and technical experts to identify pragmatic resolutions to pressing societal concerns.
Should Pew headline assertions about Americans and technology really be taken at face value?
Jakob Nielsen's comment at Ingram's blog suggests not. Neilsen responded to the Ingram commentary below:
And while most seem to be somewhat depressed by the results of the study, I was pleasantly surprised to find how "many" people engage in “Web 2.0″-type activities. The study says that when asked about things that include blogging, posting comments to a blog, uploading photos or video, creating webpages or mixing and mashing content from other sites, 37 per cent of those surveyed said they had done at least one of those things.
What’s not to like about a number like that? I was expecting the proportion to be much smaller — along the lines of the emerging 1-9-90 rule of thumb for social media, where about one per cent of people create content, 9 or 10 per cent consume it and about 90 per cent couldn’t care less about it. I find the fact that almost 40 per cent of people blog, upload photos, post comments and so on cause for considerable optimism.
Nielsen on "what's not to like" about Pew's extrapolated numbers:
It’s overstating this survey to say that “almost 40 per cent of people blog, upload photos, post comments and so on.”What the survey found was that 37% *said* that they had (at least) *once* done *one* of these things.
Remember that this is only a survey, not primary research, so it can only assess what people say, not what they actually do. However, it’s safe to assume that many of these respondents engage in these activities on a highly intermittent basis.
That’s why we experience the 1-9-90 distribution of participation when we look at any given community. There’s 1% who are extremely heavy contributors, and so most of the contributions you see are from this small minority, even though there is a larger number of people who once in a blue moon may make a contribution (but probably not to the community you are looking at).
Should Pew's telephone surveys be taken with a Web 2.0 grain of salt?
