A May 6, 2007 press release on the Pew Internet & American Life Project website details the findings of a report on how fully internet and cell phone users take advantage of the capacities of those technologies.

The press release of the report states:

Fully 85% of American adults use the internet or cell phones – and most use both. Many also have broadband connections, digital cameras and video game systems. Yet the proportion of adults who exploit the connectivity, the capacity for self expression, and the interactivity of modern information technology is a modest 8%.

Fully half of adults have a more distant or non-existent relationship to modern information technology. Some of this diffidence is driven by people’s concerns about information overload; some is related to people’s sense that their gadgets have more capacity than users can master; some is connected to people’s sense that things like blogging and creating home-brew videos for YouTube is not for them; and some is rooted in people’s inability to afford or their unwillingness to buy the gear that would bring them into the digital age.

These findings come from the Pew Internet Project’s typology of information and communication technology (ICT) users. The typology categorizes Americans based on the amount of ICTs they possess, how they use them, and their attitudes about the role of ICTs are in their lives. Ten separate groups emerge in the typology...

The typology groups the Pew report identifies are not surprising - they're the kind of people most of us know in our daily lives. The "Lackluster Veteran" is defined as someone who frequently uses the internet but doesn't really like having a cell phone and sees technology as a barrier to rather than an enabler of greate productivity. The "Light But Satisfied" user is one who has some technology (internet connectivity, cell phone) but it doesn't play a central role in their lives. They like what technology can do and see it as a tool to make them more available to others and to help them learn new things.

What's surprising is the ratio breakdown of the typology. The study finds that 49% of Americans have relatively few "technology assets." And many of those who do find the capacities of technologies overwhelming, unnecessary, or counter-productive.

Click here to read the press release in its entirety on the Pew Internet & American Life Project website.

Click here to read the full report entitled: "A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users."