Universities in 2020: A Technology Perspective by Lee Rainie
1. Universities in 2020: A technology perspective Virginia Tech Task Force January 28, 2011 Lee Rainie: Director, Pew Internet Project Email: [email_address]
13. 53% of adults own laptops – (88% coll… 93% grad …70% comm/coll) 45% of adults own MP3 players – up from 11% in 2005 50% of adults own DVRs – up from 3% in 2002 42% of adults own game consoles 6% of adults own e-book readers – Kindle (9% college.. 7% grad .. 4% comm/coll) 5% of adults own tablet computer – iPad (5% for college/grad … 4% comm/coll)
14. Consequences for info ecosystem Anywhere Any device Presence Place Any time Alone together
23. Are hot future gadgets evident now? October 22, 2010 July 9, 2010 Hot gadgets and apps that will capture the imagination of users in 2020 will often come “out of the blue” and not have been anticipated by many of today’s savviest innovators. 81% experts The hot gadgets and applications that will capture the imagination of users in 2020 are pretty evident today and will not take many of today’s savviest innovators by surprise. 16% experts
Rise of broadband at home was transformative – internet becomes a central info and communications hub in the home after the switch from dial-up. People do more stuff online; privilege the internet over other info sources in many cases; report better outcomes from internet use, and, most importantly become content creators. Two thirds of adults and 80% of teens are content creators. This is the big change the internet has introduced to media landscape. Probably take a minute to say this.
The info ecology changes thanks to rise of internet/broadband. Volume of information rises 20-30% per year. Never had anything close to this in human history. Velocity of information increases, especially in groups. Personally relevant news speeds up as people customize personal feeds, alerts, listservs, group communications. Vibrance of information/media increases as bandwidth increases and computing power grows so media experiences become more immersive and compelling Valence/relevance of information grows in the era of the “Daily Me” and “Daily Us” and custom feeds. 2 mins
Perhaps biggest change in info ecology is the democratization of media – and proliferation of niches. The Long Tail becomes reality for media and brands.
This is the way Pew Internet measures content creation….
Quick rundown of growth of cell ownership – 30 seconds
Rundown of mobile connectivity Cell phones – 39% of cell owners Laptops – 87% of laptop owners Overall that adds up to 57% of adults
The change wrought by mobile is that people are perpetually connected and pervasively available. It means that media and people are available anywhere with any device on any of three screens. Quick tout of Nielsen 3-Screen research (unless you want to do that) and how this shifts the venues and times of people’s encounters with media. Consumers run the playlist now, not the media companies. This changes people’s sense of place (and placelessness) and present. They can be with any one at any time and this creates the reality of “absent presence”.
Quick rundown of our data on rise of social networking. This amplifies long term trends dating to 20 th century in technology, new social roles, workforce structure, politics and culture. Right now, 48% of American adults use social networking sites and fastest growth is taking place in the 50+ age cohort
Most importantly, mobile connectivity changes people’s sense of time and their allocation of attention to media. They can exist in three separate zones of attention depending on their circumstances, frame of mind, and needs. Continuous partial attention / multitasking – perpetually interruptable and interrupting Deep dives – the rise of amateur experts who can find out anything about subjects that matter to them. The special case is health research. Info-snacking – this is particularly enabled by mobile because it allows people to get little info-hits when they are in transactional situations or when they have “micro-boredom” to kill Mobile also adds to the number of media zones that people can inhabit, again, reflecting their circumstances, frame of mind, and needs Social zone – what are my friends doing; telling them what I’m doing: highly interactive and involves disclosure of interests of the moment – direct cues about where attention and intentions are focused – people take direction from the people in their social networks about what to examine Immersive zone – 1) gaming and 2) couch potato space – less interruptable and less interested in being interrupted, more attentive to media and more disrupted (unhappily) by interventions Streams – this is the zone people are in when they want to “catch up” with news or developments. Similar to the social zone, but more open to media inputs from organizations …. Checking for “headlines” of all kinds …. Less annoyed at relevant commercial information – indeed “networked information” is a hallmark of this zone Creative / participatory zone – this is the place where people create content to share online…. They comment on / rank /rate the media they’ve experienced; they remix it at times. Commercial messaging is part of the play and participation environment. This is “conversational” space for commercial messaging and there are opportunities and dangers. This is where the most engaged customers are: they can be evangelists OR provocateurs, depending on their mood and the way they encounter brands.
In the challenging new media ecosystem – as more information comes at them from more sources at ever-greater speeds – people cope with the change by relying more and more on their social networks. There are three important ways they do that. The first is that they rely on their networks to act as their “alert” system – sentries. We hear from more and more people who begin and end their days by checking in with their social networks to see what’s new, what’s worth viewing, what’s most enjoyable in media spaces.