What proportion of people in different age groupings are doing more than reading the Web? (See the table on page 6.)
There were some interesting contrasts here - but I couldn't see how the various categories were defined so I'm not sure whether someone who writes a blog is a 'Creator' or a 'Joiner' for example.
Among the Joiners 70% of 18-21 year olds were using SNSs but only 29% of 27-40 year olds. It isn't clear whether this is because such sites are a young technology or because users tend to give up on these sites as they get older. It also isn't clear whether Joiners are all people who have an account and have ever used such sites or whether the category only includes those who do so regularly.
'Collectors' are a relatively small proportion of all age groups. This is interesting because arguably this is one of the uses of Web 2.0 that has strong educational uses in terms of research.
34% of 12-17 year olds and 42% of 27-40 year olds are 'Inactive' (that is, they do not use Web 2.0 tools).
This relatively high figure for the younger age group made it rather surprising for me that the authors 'buy in' to Perensky's 'digital native' hypothesis pretty much without question.
2. What does this suggest about the experience of Web 2.0 that the majority of users have? Does it embody the claimed characteristics of Web 2.0 or is it closer to those of Web 1.0? (See section 2.5 of the report.)
I'm less than convinced. Although the figures for active participation are higher than has been suggested they are still low. Moreover it isn't clear what the survey questions were - we cannot say for certain that the Creators do so regularly. Apart from the spike in the Joiner's figures for the three younger age groups and the Spectators fand Inactive figures there is no majority of the age groups in the other categories. Arguably the one that really counts is 'Creators'.
Spectators and Inactives are essentially still using Web 1.0.
The observatory report
There were some interesting contrasts here - but I couldn't see how the various categories were defined so I'm not sure whether someone who writes a blog is a 'Creator' or a 'Joiner' for example.
Among the Joiners 70% of 18-21 year olds were using SNSs but only 29% of 27-40 year olds. It isn't clear whether this is because such sites are a young technology or because users tend to give up on these sites as they get older. It also isn't clear whether Joiners are all people who have an account and have ever used such sites or whether the category only includes those who do so regularly.
'Collectors' are a relatively small proportion of all age groups. This is interesting because arguably this is one of the uses of Web 2.0 that has strong educational uses in terms of research.
34% of 12-17 year olds and 42% of 27-40 year olds are 'Inactive' (that is, they do not use Web 2.0 tools).
This relatively high figure for the younger age group made it rather surprising for me that the authors 'buy in' to Perensky's 'digital native' hypothesis pretty much without question.
2. What does this suggest about the experience of Web 2.0 that the majority of users have? Does it embody the claimed characteristics of Web 2.0 or is it closer to those of Web 1.0? (See section 2.5 of the report.)
I'm less than convinced. Although the figures for active participation are higher than has been suggested they are still low. Moreover it isn't clear what the survey questions were - we cannot say for certain that the Creators do so regularly. Apart from the spike in the Joiner's figures for the three younger age groups and the Spectators fand Inactive figures there is no majority of the age groups in the other categories. Arguably the one that really counts is 'Creators'.
Spectators and Inactives are essentially still using Web 1.0.
I'll post about the other questions later