People’s Web-savvy (or lack thereof)

Why can’t it stay 1998? We were state of the art in 1998… (Our HTML is still state of the art c. 1998 and will remain so until we receive a written apology from the W3C about CSS.)

But while I’m quite sure my mum has no idea what an RSS feed; I’m not yet convinced she’s the wrong side of a divide as a consequence: I would bet that ignorance of what RSS feeds are is a pretty decent proxy for not having the problem they are designed to solve.

(If I cease to think this she will be briefed, of course.)

It must be remembered that a large number of all these Internet terms are nothing more than inane buzzwords. Terms like “blog”, “Internet year”, “cyberterrorism”… these’ll probably fade into oblivion, and nobody’ll miss them.

And you probably know that security is a whole lot more than just knowing some terms. Knowing terms like “phishing”, “spyware” etc. helps zilch if you don’t stop to think before clicking on that icon of a naked woman that comes in an e-mail that goes “Subject: Look!”. I’d say that thinking about security requires a really special mindset, one that makes you put yourself in the shoes of a malicious attacker.

What’s “podcasting”? Is it edible?

(“works”. I do know what “preview” means, for the little that seems to be worth on today’s internets.)

Some terms that might matter to the average (as in, non-specialized) user more than ‘podcasting’ or ‘RSS’ might be:

“Pop-up blocker”
“Firewall”
“Email spam filter”
“Service Pack 2”

And of course:
“Firefox”

(Though you might not want to include that last one in your survey!)

Incidentally, Tyler Cowen has an interesting piece today (responding to Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks…) on the possible future of ‘podcasting’.

How well does self-reported knowledge correlate with actual knowledge?

I only learned the term pfishing a few months ago, but I understood the concept a long time ago.

I’m still not clear on what RSS stands for. Most people say it’s Really Simple Syndication, but I’ve also heard that it’s an acronym for Rich Site Summary. So which is it? (Some people jokingly say it’s also really simple stealing–you can steal blog posts and then post them to a knew blog to earn ad revenue.)

I have a decent understanding of spyware–I think–but what’s adware?

(“Always” is an overstatement — I have been mystified by them only since shortly after they were introduced, I guess a year or two ago.)

My theory of web terminology includes the precept: if I needed to know what it is, I would not have to ask. I’ll let you ponder that for a while while I get on with more salient points.

I occasionally work with people (students, mainly) who have difficulty with things like browsing, email attachments, saving text files in various formats, and knowing where to find stuff on their hard drives. These are people who are ostensibly on one side of the digital divide (they have access to computing resources), but in the context of knowing the meaning of terms like HTML and RSS they are – perhaps AFA technoscenti are concerned – effectively still on the other side.

The characterisation – if there is one – makes no sense when one considers the likelihood of multiple and contingent modes of access. All kinds of people come at this thing from all kinds of directions and with all manner of capacities and agendas.

On this basis I think things like the Pew study are misleading and mis-led. There is no maonolithic ‘public’, but multiple and diverse constituencies moving at variable rates across different parts of the terrain.

Which region are you on?

To offer a slightly different perspective on these questions, I would point out that the car industry is considerably more mature than the Internet, and yet I would be largely at a loss if someone asked me to explain a solenoid, or a Hemi, or a catalytic converter. I have only the vaguest idea how an automatic transmission works, and I have no idea what “rack-and-pinion-steering” means. Perhaps I’m alone in these sorts of knowledge gaps, but somehow I don’t think so.

Still, I can operate my car in a manner that meets my needs and gives me pleasure, and I can be trained to change the oil periodically, rotate the tires, etc. No one speaks of a second-order automotive divide between people like me and people who can repair their own cars. Similarly, if most Internet users can use the technology in a manner that suits them and can be trained to conduct regular maintenance like virus scans, why is the gap between those people and power users of academic interest? Put another way, why is ignorance of Internet technology more significant and more likely to contribute to social inequality than ignorance of automotive technology?

I would point out that the car industry is considerably more mature than the Internet, and yet I would be largely at a loss if someone asked me to explain a solenoid…

In car terms, PC/internet is around the early 1920s. There are a lot of them about, and not only for the rich and the enthusiast.

But you need regularly to get out and get under. There are at least three ways of doing anything on a computer for the good reason that, often, one way doesn’t work for some reason. (My laptop backspace key is stuck right now – I’m dancing round (or selecting) and using Delete.)

Some sites render like crap in my preferred Firefox, so I keep IE handy.

And I’m trying to optimise the timing when I’m going to have to restart the PC because things are getting so slow.

What other sort of consumer equipment requires you to turn it off and on again just to make it work properly?

In the 1920s, you might not have known how to strip down an engine; but you would certainly have known how to replace a fan-belt, clear a carburettor and a load of other things the need for which has been eliminated by the design of modern cars.

I can remember when, if your TV went on the blink, you’d hit it on the top in right spot, and it would work again.

That’s the world that PC’s are stuck in.

The point here is that those in already privileged positions (e.g. higher levels of education) tend to be more savvy about the Web libraries and may well benefit from its uses more than those in less privileged positions. This means that instead of leveling the playing field, Internet library use may contribute to social inequality.

People with higher levels of education are more savvy about using almost every public resource a society provides. Are we, therefore, to turn a skeptical eye on, say, national parks because the better educated use them more and get more out of them?

John Smith: What other sort of consumer equipment requires you to turn it off and on again just to make it work properly?

Computers are not like any other sort of consumer equipment. What other sort of consumer equipment has anything close to a similar range of uses–able to emulate: a typewriter, an auto-indexing file cabinet, a photographic darkroom, a flight-simulator, a weather station, a drafting board, a jukebox, a music synthesizer, a universal newsstand, etc, etc. And that, of course, is certainly not an exhaustive list.

Computer equipment with a very limited range of uses (say a handheld GPS or an iPod) does not suffer from the problems that come from the universality and flexbility of the PC–it’s a tradeoff. But even so, PCs need to be turned off to work around problems much less often than they did 5-10 years ago. Indeed, the main problem has changed–from getting the computer to work properly running useful programs (which was a problem 10 years ago but hardly at all today) to getting the computer to defend itself against malign programs without interfering with the useful ones (a different and harder problem).

The car analogy has still got a lot of mileage in it, so I’m gonna give it a bit of gas.

I whtinbk the Pew research would have been more interesting if it had asked (as Eszter put it) how it helps people advance their careers and so forth. I’ve been asking myself that questio today and have decided that I’m in a position where I’ve got a van – a utilitarian vehicle that require few new driving skills – but that to develop my career, I need a balloon-assisted crane.

First, does anyone know where I can get the parts to assemble this on my own? Second, can I operate the thing with knowledge I already have? If I could get it assembled by the end of the month I’m sure I could increase my productivity five-fold.

Meanwhile, I’ve got this van. It’s actually pretty good for a lot of stuff, and it’s not finicky, like some sports cars. So if I’m going on a road trip, or even just for commuting, it’s sure a lot less hassle to drive this thing even if it isn’t a zippy scooter or a comfy cruisemobile. And I can’t justify the greater expense of thjose extra vehicles until my earnings make a significant jump. If only I had that crane…

Slocum: yes and no I guess. While there are many clever inventions with rather mundane names, e.g. “persistent data structures“, there are also many funny things marketed with funny names, like “Enterprise JavaBeans” (whatever in the nine hells that is), “XML”, “DOM”, “SOAP”, “C#”, … In fact, the impression I get from studying CS is that people are expected to fully know what stacks, queues, heaps, etc. are, but are supposed to use JSP/JavaBeans/XML/whatever as some sort of magic black box. And seriously, I just saw a blog entry from someone who thought that Aaron Swartz was a genius because he standardized RSS. You can’t deny that there’s some powerful jargon…

An “Instruction Materials Resource Centre”, well, it’s just too obvious what that really is.

(Even among those who know something about (say) XML, there are people who somehow think that XML has some sort of special power which other kinds of data formats with more boring names don’t have. But I digress.)

bi: There are also many funny things marketed with funny names, like “Enterprise JavaBeans” (whatever in the nine hells that is), “XML”, “DOM”, “SOAP”, “C#”, … In fact, the impression I get from studying CS is that people are expected to fully know what stacks, queues, heaps, etc. are, but are supposed to use JSP/JavaBeans/XML/whatever as some sort of magic black box.

Well, what I’m saying is that in computer science, jargon is not used instead of commonly understood plain-english alternatives. Some what you’re talking about are names invented by marketing departments (‘Java’ and, I believe ‘Beans’). The original name for the Java language was ‘Oak’ (named, IIRC, after the tree outside the inventor’s window). As for the rest of the items in your list–those are acronyms which do make sense if you find out what the letters stand for: ‘eXtensible Markup Language’ ‘Simple Object Access Protocol’–if you think there are plain English alternative terms that would make these concepts clear to laypersons, I’d be interested to hear them.

You are right that XML has been overhyped and oversold–but that is a sales/marketing/fashion phenomenon, not one that can be blamed on use of jargon.

dglp: Podcasting is just filesharing with a sexed-up label. If it involved any actual streaming (web based equivalent of broadcasting), then I wouldn’t take issue.

Yes, the underlying implementation is filesharing but concpetually, it is a form of broadcasting. You might call it ‘broadcasting via MP3 file-sharing’. A lot of ‘regular’ broadcasting already works in an analogous way–the network records the show and delivers it later, or the network delivers the show live but YOU TIVO it and watch it later. It’s still broadcasting if you’re watching a tape-delayed re-run or a Tivo recording (or a TIVO recording of a tape-delayed rerun).

Slocum: I don’t know the specifics of this “podcasting”, but isn’t the crux of the matter whether,from a _user’s_ point of view, one _can_ listen to a even as it’s being downloaded?

And even besides “podcasting”, there are many other instances where jargon’s used to obscure rather than describe. The worst offender, I think, is the area of HCI — often many people say they’re doing “usability engineering” when they’re just spouting off pseudo-scientific quasi-religious precepts on How Things Should Be and dressing it all up in nice tables and graphs. (There are people trying to do good work going on in HCI, but it seems the field’s covered so much in manure that it’s hard for a layman to tell shite from shinola.)

Outside of HCI too, you can’t really deny there’s some power in the use of jargon and acronyms. When was the last time a layman was impressed by a person who finally mastered persistent data structures?

Always fun to read about jargon, TLA terror and technical terms. What would HCI people say about the use of “AFA technoscenti”?

But on the subject of podcasting, I’d say it is jargon, and not a techical term. Besides the odd Joe, nobody cares about the technical specifics, about how those podcasts end up on their Ipods or computers, people just want to listen to the podcast someone else made.

And I think the Pew poll messes it up a bit by just giving a semi-illiterate technical description for the term.

“Podcasting (audio files that are downloaded from Web sites loaded onto MP3 players such as iPods and played at the convenience of users)”

This would make all of Itunes a podcasting business.

“Distributing a radio show in mp3 format” would probably be a better start for a description.

Hmm. But what’s ‘radio’? Maybe it should be called podjocking to distinguish it from iTunes album/track-casting. The actual intervention of a pod jockey as distinct from a collection of tunes downloaded off a site (commercial or otherwise).

Just because I was curious I googled a bit more about the word podcasting.

Supposedly Ben Hammersley, writing in the Guardian, was the first person to coin that term.

“With the benefit of hindsight, it all seems quite obvious. MP3 players, like Apple’s iPod, in many pockets, audio production software cheap or free, and weblogging an established part of the internet; all the ingredients are there for a new boom in amateur radio.

But what to call it? Audioblogging? Podcasting? GuerillaMedia?”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1145689,00.html

Which seems to show that podcasting has a history of meaning more than just the technical side of it(RSS + enclosures, subscription and asynchronous downloading.)

“Persistent data structures” works perfectly fine as a term, so why not e.g. “MP3 broadcasting”?

Because ‘podcasting’ is shorter and catchier. It is common practice to form compound words out of broadcasting by droppoing the first part of the word ‘simulcasting’ ‘narrowcasting’. Plus, of course, ‘pod’ and ‘broad’ are similar one-syllable words. And because ‘ipod’ seems well on it’s way to becoming a generic name for MP3 players.

In any case, ‘podcasting’ wasn’t selected instead of ‘MP3 broadcasting’ to make the concept more obscure.

_And because ‘ipod’ seems well on it’s way to becoming a generic name for MP3 players._

Maybe… in Bizarro World.

RSS feeds: the Pew survey asked if respondents knew ‘what the term means’

Please tell me if have a good idea what the term means, or if you arent really sure what it means:
Have a good idea | Not really sure | Never heard the term

I would put my own response in the middle, because from what I’ve read, there are three meanings of the term.1
If I was familiar with all three, and confident in my use of each, I might say that I knew the meaning of the term(s). But as it stands, I’m not all that au fait, I have a general idea, and would have said that I’m not really sure what it means. I know enough to know that there’s some variation and ambiguity. But perhaps that means, for Pew purposes, that having a general idea would put me in the ‘I have a good idea’ group. So, because of the history of RSS, the question itself is not amenable to a straightforward answer.

As for knowing what RSS does, and is, that’s another matter. Pew didn’t ask if people knew either of those things, but if the discussion takes in questions about whether people feel comfortable using the new technology, then RSS presents an interesting, difficult example.

An understanding what RSS is, and more importantly, how to use it (at either end) is subject to knowing a variety of other things, such as the nature of XML, distinctions between versions, whether or not it includes Atom and what to do in response to seeing a feed link, particualrly if there isn’t a nifty Livemark icon at the bottom of one’s browser.

In a case like this, I would expect to visit Wikipedia, Whatis, or some other sites and have a quick read, then be on my way in terms of using it myself.2 But in going through the motions, I see that there’s not much ‘how to’ about RSS. There are a lot of discussions about what it is and the variants thereof, but not many on what to do when you see it.

The upshot is that some things are harder to figure out than others, and RSS feeds are among the more complicated, particularly among the terms Pew chose.

1. Note that information sources give differing versions of what the term means. Whatis.com is emphatic, Wikipedia is less so.

2. For this purpose I went to Wikipedia, Whatis, the Guardian RSS page, Googled “what is RSS” and browsed a few of the results. I then Googled “How do I use RSS“, and browsed the DMOZ directory for things that looked relevant. This page gave me answers more quickly than most.