Advanced Television

Cisco: ‘Internet fundamental human resource’

September 21, 2011

Demonstrating the increasing role of the network in people’s lives, an international workforce study commissioned by Cisco has revealed that one in three college students and young professionals considers the Internet to be as important as fundamental human resources such as air, water, food and shelter. The 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report also found that more than half of the study’s respondents say they could not live without the Internet and cite it as an “integral part of their lives” – in some cases more integral than cars, dating, and partying.

Two-thirds of students (66 per cent) and more than half of employees (58 per cent) cited a mobile device (laptop, smartphone, tablet) as “the most important technology in their lives.”

Across both groups, the indications are that the TV’s prominence is decreasing in favour of mobile devices such as laptops and smartphones. Globally, fewer than one in 10 college students (six per cent) and employees (eight per cent) said the TV is the most important technology device in their daily lives. As TV programming and movies become available on mobile devices, this downward trend is expected to continue.

According to Dave Evans, chief futurist, Cisco, the lifestyles of ‘prosumers’ – the blending of professionals and consumers in the workplace — their technology expectations, and their behaviour toward information access is changing the nature of communications on a global basis.

Categories: Articles, Broadband, Consumer Behaviour, Research