14 DAY TRIAL // New scientific evidence comes to show that even teenagers themselves have nowadays problems with the most modern gadgets, despite their being the main target of advertising campaigns. While those in their late teen years and early adulthood can handle most devices producers “throw” at them, the most complicated technology is not that easily “digested,” a new study comes to show. The research has been conducted on a group of males and females in their late 20s, as they were considered to be representative of the purpose of the study.
The new paper, released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project on Wednesday, explains that the members of the group were selected very rigorously. All of them were part of the first wave of Internet users, and had lived with cell phones and other personal devices for the better part of their life. The people in this group, known as “Ambivalent Networkers,” accounted for a fifth of the 40 percent of those who said that their mobile devices were an extension of themselves.
In a larger study, roughly 60 percent of respondents shared that they felt no real “attachment” to their personal gadgets, and that they would gladly give them up if they were still allowed to keep their personal computers. “They're the most active on social networks and using mobile devices for a range of activities, yet they think it's a good idea to take a break. They are not thrilled about all that's available,” Pew's associate director for research John Horrigan explains.
The paper has also revealed that these people are afraid of going offline even if they want to, on account of the fact that all of their friends, peers and colleagues are connected by social media sites such as Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. In other words, they fear being left behind in the technological race and not being able to keep up with everyone around them.
“They live a professional lifestyle that draws them to digital resources. They are lunging ahead with less fear and hesitation,” Horrigan says of a group known as “Digital Collaborators,” who are both enthusiastic about and pleased with mobile technology, and actually seek it out. The paper relies on a survey of over 3,553 American adults, and the margin of error is below 2 percentage points.