How have computers impacted your life?

Twenty-two people responded that they would not give up computers for money, but if they could have the money and continue using computers, then they would take it. This is roughly 46% of respondents. These people therefore like money (most people do), but value computers even more. Of this 46%, thirteen spend four or more hours on computers per day. This is 27% of respondents. Of this 27%, eleven encourage others to use computers. This is 23% of all respondents. So 23% of respondents comprise a group that would not trade computers for money, spends 4 or more hours per day on computers, and encourages others to use computers as well. Thus, this 23% is highly passionate about computing. There are also three respondents who spend 4 or more hours per day on computers, encourage others to use computers, but would not accept the money based on principle. It is safe say these three respondents are passionate about computing as well. This makes for a total of 14 respondents, or 29%, who are passionate about computing.

Of the thirty-four non-passionate computer users, seven said their lives would not significantly change if they no longer used computers. This is 14.5% of respondents. Of those 14.5%, six would give up computers for money. This is 12.5%. These are clearly casual users. The remaining twenty-eight respondents, or 58.5%, that are neither passionate nor casual I have labeled intermediate users.

Of the fourteen respondents who are passionate about computers, ten are younger than thirty. This means that 71% of passionate users are young. Also worth noting, is that of the same fourteen respondents, twelve started using computers before the age of twenty. So 85.7% of respondents who are passionate about computers began using them at an early age.

Out of all respondents, sixteen are age thirty or older. Of these sixteen, only four are passionate users. Thus 75% of respondents age thirty or older are casual or intermediate computer users.

So what can we make of all this data? The results of my survey show a couple of things. First, the distribution of users according to the levels of their computer usage follows a near bell curve if taken on an ordinal scale. This implies that the majority of computer users are indeed intermediate users, and that both casual and passionate users represent two extremes. Computers are thus not penetrated into our lifestyle to the amount that they are completely necessary. However, they are penetrated into our lifestyle enough that they are extremely useful. Second, the distribution of passionate users is skewed towards younger individuals and individuals who learned to use computers at a younger age. Thus there is a trend toward computers becoming more integrated into our lifestyle since younger individuals are more likely to be heavy computer users. Third, although most older users are more of the casual or intermediate type, there are still some older, passionate users of computers. This shows that even individuals who may have not grown up with computers are becoming passionate users as well.

In conducting my research, I discovered many flaws in my survey. First, I assumed that everyone owns a computer. Obviously this is not the case. I was able to circumvent the issue by only surveying those people who actually own a computer, but to truly answer my question of how computers have affected peoples lives, I should not have done that. Second, the questions about improving or worsening relations with family and friends did not show any obvious trend as I had hoped, and ultimately proved wasted since I was unable to use them. Third, my sample of forty-eight people is hardly representative of any real-world population. Thus, although my survey produced some great results, it can hardly be trusted as representative of any real-world trends.