British laggards told to embrace their digital futures

Bless the BCS

......how do they propose that these laggards access this website!?!

Surely an offline promo campaign would be of far greater use

Spare us from these useless reports!

Oh god save us from the evangelising 'tards who are only after ensuring that their cushy niche has some justification.

The world got by fine without blogs and ar*efa*e updates about how Sheila just got her visit from aunt flo. There is nothing here for my 70 yr old father who has no interest in "tech". heres a clue... some people DONT want! it really is that simple! I really wonder if our society is now unable to function without the input of some attention seeking sad sacks who have to blog about every uninteresting aspect of their uninspiring lives.

Isn't it a shame that there isn't the same interest in dealing with the farcical pricing regime that exists that ensures Market one exchange customers pay far more money for far less service... usually in areas with a depressed economy. Thats the area that needs addressing. sort out OFCOM and BT's too cosy relationship, and bring some equality across the board.. then you might see more people joining the digital throng... until then - for many - its just another expense that is just not viable.

Hand grenade because the academics need one underneath them for failing to see the underlaying problems.

Huh?

It requires a Facebook identity to get in to the quiz. Now, I'm not an IT laggard, but in the name of security there is no way that I want to have a Facebook account ... that is the greatest waste of time since a good portion of my life was wasted in NFS most Wanted.

I'm not going to sign up for a facebook account just to do some quiz. It will be no surprise that the majority of results that they get are the 18-45 male population if that is how they are running it. Pah! I thought the BCS could have done better than that.

I'll therefore spurn this obvious complete waste of time and go to enhance my fortunes in Lineage 2 instead.

Missing something here

Yeah a website for digital laggards, that's gonna work. Pats on backs all round lads!

While you're at it, why not launch a stop hunting polar bears campaign in the Sahara?

Information-savvy?

Ok sort your nomenclature out BCS. Just because they don't know their facespace from their blogtube doesn't mean they're neanderthals. They know how to use libraries and you know... face-to-face contact and all that - all very valid and efficient ways to "access and use" information last time I checked.

Also as if anyone needs more than say 10% of the "information" most people are peddling around. Twitter, I'm looking at you.

Twats.

23%? Butt Shirley ...

The next figures have just got to be:

But in well flush areas with lots of dosh computer literacy is about 80%

while in dosh deprived areas computer literacy is about -27%

Now we don't claim that there is a strong correlation or indeed any correlation at all but it seems to be a key indicator along lines of: where there are computer skills then there are money (?)

Computer says Wait

How come their website's so slooow?

BCS attempts relevance shock

"Unless all members of society are made aware of how they can access and use information in their daily lives, the significant proportion of Britons who are failing to realise the benefits of information technology will persist."

translation:

if you are not one of us, you are one of THEM.

Also, I note that there is no mention of people who do "realise the benefits", and feel that the the cons outweigh the pros. Perhaps it is the BCS who are "failing to realise" that there is more to life than computers. (did i just write that? wow! must be a woman involved somewhere...)

Now, I computerify (technical term) on a regular basis (thus me reading el Reg), but i dont think that people who chose not to computerify should have some sort of stigma attached to them.

Not liking Dr Who, thinking Starbuck was better as a man, and being an elitist organisation with little or no relevance - these are reasons for stigma I understand.

(although people are permitted to not like the *new* Dr who if they prefer the old one - im not a nazi)

A title is required

I think the BCS must be stopped! If they succeed in making all these now-illiterate literate, we'll never reduce downloading of copyright material by 70% or even 1%

RE: Bless the BCS

Reminds me of the illiteracy campaign once run in the States.

Posters were put up with the slogan - If you can't read this - We can help.

Dont you just love statistics !

Firstly, the figures with demographics starting at age 18 lose about 25% of the 60 million population, so that makes _about_ 6.7 million not 8.9 million. (And that's simple arithmetic not maths by the way ;) )

Secondly, the judgement 'had not improved their lives' will be a balance, not 'there is nothing I like about I.T.' (And that's simple english language by the way ;) )

Thirdly, since when have computer geeks _ever_ been qualified to understand what real people want ?????

Oh, I'm 54 and earn my living writing software, and my wife works from home on a quad-cpu system system with about 2TB of storage.

Our problem is the cr_p state of the BT network out in the countryside which makes it very difficult for a large percentage of the population to actually realise those cr_p statistics of the Internet's power which modern (young, wet-behind-the-ears) software authors expect everyone to have.

so much fail

its hard to know where to start

some people cant bloody read how are they supposed to learn how to operate a computer then?

/thinks back to pictograph keyboards on acorn computers in junior school

and the thing is some people just dont get it seriously. to them a computer or any form of digital technology is witchcraft and must be burned