In lieu of a properly sampled nationally representative survey (which is not perfect either - social desirability and response biases abound), penetration rates generally come from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations agency that is responsible for information and communication technologies. Thus when comparing countries or other entities based on percentage of individuals that have adopted a technology, analyses that do not control for these differences are misrepresenting the actual technology landscape.Ĭounting technology users is difficult. Similarly, societies with higher proportions of younger people will have higher technology-penetration rates.Īt a macro level, telecommunications systems, competition, price, and national wealth can also influence penetration rates. Thus, it is unsurprising that in societies with more wealthy people or better distributed education systems, there are higher technology-penetration rates. In nearly all societies, the wealthier, the better educated, the more urban, and the younger adopt new technology earlier than the poorer, the less educated, the more rural, and the older do. Technologies tend to diffuse in similar patterns, with similar factors determining early versus later adopters. The contributing factors to technology adoption are well-known, but become embedded within discussions of penetration rates. Why is technology penetration so difficult to measure?ġ. Given the challenges in measuring technology penetration, it is astonishing that speakers continue to make such statements. When pundits or government officials mention penetration rates, it is often in support of a bigger social or political goal: "84 percent of women in Country X have a mobile phone"." women's empowerment through technology is possible." Or: "With 80 percent of the country using the Internet, we can say that we've achieved our economic and technological goals" or “most African-American households have Internet access, so the digital divide is over” or 1 million Facebook users means that there is freedom of expression. Why should anyone care? Because inferences into what social-media- or mobile-phone- or Internet-penetration rates represent are dangerous. Despite this, in fact, penetrations rates are futile. Governments and policy pundits frequently cite technology-penetration rates - Internet, mobile phone, or social media - as meaningful proxies for deeper concepts. This is a guest post by Katy Pearce, an assistant professor in the University of Washington's Department of Communication.
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