No Growth in Social Media Use Over Last Two Years According to Oxford University Internet Survey to be Presented at NextGen13
Changing Agendas: shifting broadband futures
Professor William Dutton, Keynote Speaker at the upcoming NextGen13 Conference to be held at Wembley next month, has today released the results of an Oxford University report on Internet use in the UK. The report by the Oxford Internet Institute finds five percent more Brits are using the net but shows that the seemingly relentless growth in social media use has stalled.
According to the detailed survey, which will be presented in full at the NextGen13 conference, 78 percent of the UK population are now online – an increase on the 73 percent in 2011. Despite this, use of social media has held steady at about 60 percent over the same period.
“I think we can expect to see over 80 percent of the population in Britain using the Internet in the coming years,” said Professor Dutton, the survey leader and NextGen13 Keynote speaker. “Internet diffusion in the UK is now more in line with a number of other countries where you would expect to see similar levels of use. Mobile and tablet devices seem to have boosted accessibility and we have noticed a real increase in lower income groups and those aged 45 and over who are now going online.”
On social media, Professor Dutton noted that a small proportion of the population are heavy users of services like Facebook and Twitter but said there had been a definite freeze in their overall use.
“Our survey supports previous evidence that the Internet is a very important tool for economic development,” added Professor Dutton. However, the report which examines British Internet use and attitudes suggests that more than half of users are not enthusiastic about the Internet: “We also looked at the cultures of the Internet and identified five clusters of users with similar attitudes and beliefs. Worryingly, more than half take Internet use for granted, or see it as a waste of time, and we are not seeing people in Britain using it as creatively as users in other countries, such as Brazil and China.”
“The rise in UK Internet usage reported by Professor Dutton is impressive,” says Robert Bell, co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum and fellow NextGen13 speaker.
“Internet penetration will never be 100 percent because it varies with age, income and education level. Social media usage also varies with culture: in the US, Internet usage in the state of Louisiana is lower than the state of Minnesota, but Louisiana residents use social media more than their Minnesota peers. Usage will also vary from nation to nation.” The Intelligent Community Forum is a non-profit organization based in New York City. For 15 years the Intelligent Community Forum has enabled global communities to embrace the economic and social opportunities presented by broadband. Bell will lead a keynote conversation on the opening day of NextGen 13.
NextGen 13, the UK’s leading two-day event for next generation digital access, will encourage different thinking across the Information Economy, embracing progress in all network ‘access’ technologies throughout the UK, and will discuss plans for services to stimulate economic regeneration.
Wembley is known for its next generation telecoms services, where every home and building is pre-wired with the Velocity1 (subsidiary of Magnet Networks) digital network system, providing businesses and residents with one of the fastest broadband services in the UK, as well as unparalleled access to IP services.
Off-site tours of these cutting edge Wembley facilities will be arranged for visitors of NextGen 13 to demonstrate how self-sustaining, futuristic services have influenced the commercial opportunities available to an area, which has already embraced digital infrastructure investment.
The event, organised by NG Events Ltd at the brand new Hilton at Wembley, will include a conference, exhibition and trade show. This year’s agenda will have an emphasis on FTTH in new and existing developments, the services it will enable and what it will mean to various business sectors in the UK. The event is endorsed by the FTTH Council Europe. Other themes to be addressed will include open data, innovation and intelligent communities.
To find out more about attending visit the website: http://www.nextgenevents.co.uk/events/nextgen-13.
About NG Events Ltd:
NG Events Ltd, through its events, is the UK’s premier platform for knowledge transfer about digital access network investment, developments and management. The 2013 programme includes three national level events across the UK including NextGen 13 – the flagship two-day conference on 14 and 15 October in London. This is the sixth year for the NextGen programme and delegate numbers are expected to continue to rise year on year as the UK market grows.
The annual event is being sponsored by Velocity1, SES Broadband Services, Keymile, Cambium Networks, Go ON UK, ICT KTN (Knowledge Transfer Network) and Synchronoss Technologies. It will feature exhibitors from every part of the UK’s technology and digital services industry including fibre, mobile, wireless and satellite technologies.
Alongside the London event, NextGen Events also held the Leeds Intelligent Cities Conference in June and organised Digital Scotland 2013, which took place on 22 May.
The Digital Challenge Awards showcased at NextGen13 will highlight the best in next generation digital access infrastructure innovation. Designed to give companies the opportunity to highlight achievements in developing and deploying better broadband, the awards have proved popular since their launch in 2011.
NG Events Ltd is directed by Marit Hendriks and Andrew Macdonald and is technology, supplier and service neutral. For more details, sponsors and supporters, see www.nextgenevents.co.uk
Link to registration site for NextGen 13
http://www.nextgenevents.co.uk/events/nextgen-13
Link to NextGen Challenge Awards
http://www.nextgenevents.co.uk/awards
The report, ‘Cultures of the internet: The internet in Britain’, is by William Dutton and Grant Blank from the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. For more information, go to http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/
