Public Awareness of Internet Terms

Pew Internet & American Life Project is at it again, This Time they say the average American internet user is not sure what podcasting is, what an RSS feed does, or what the term “phishing” means. Large numbers of internet users do not know the basic definition of some of the hottest new internet innovations and one of the most serious online dangers. 3% of people polled had never heard the terms Spam, Firewall, or Spyware, while 26% never heard RSS Feeds, and 23% blanked on Podcasting.

July 21, 2005 by Uncategorized 4

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4 Responses

  1. rowanf says:
    July 22, 2005 at 1:56 am

    rather sobering really
    Only 39% “have a good idea” what phishing is. 13% know about podcasting and 9% about RSS feeds. 3% had never heard of “spam” as a term for unsolicited bulk commercial email (and 10% wheren’t sure what it meant).

    As someone who is considering taking up podcasting I can only hope the recent iTunes podcasting support will change this. 🙂

    Reply
  2. lislemck says:
    July 22, 2005 at 5:02 am

    Re:rather sobering really
    I hear some of these terms misused regularly, i.e., spam referring to pop-up windows. Did the surveyers check for comprehension, or just go by what people said? Somehow, I don’t think they used the techniques of the reference interview to achieve clarity.

    Reply
  3. Curmudgeony says:
    July 23, 2005 at 3:19 am

    Anyone else take this as a challenge?
    I think we should create an information science/online dictionary to help put all these new fangled buzzwords into a suitably understandable language.

    Reply
  4. bentley says:
    July 25, 2005 at 6:33 pm

    Re:Anyone else take this as a challenge?
    Have you seen NetLingo? “NetLingo is an online dictionary about the Internet. It contains thousands of words and definitions that describe the technology and community of the World Wide Web.”

    Reply

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