Are You Part of the Technology Elite?

A study released Sunday found that 31% of Americans are ‘highly tech-savvy’ people for whom the Internet, cell phones and handheld organizers are more indispensable than TVs and old-fashioned wired phones. That’s a nice change from the perception that most Americans can’t even program a simple VCR. It’s always bugged me that Japan gets all the really cool electronic gadgets before us because they’re seen as being more tech-savvy. In about a week, when I dump my landline, I’ll meet all four of the criteria to be tech elite:

• They spend, on average, a total of $169 a month on broadband Internet service, satellite or cable TV, cell phones and Web content. That is 39% higher than the national average, $122.


• Some 29% of them have broadband connections, compared with 17% of everyone else.


• About 7% of technology aficionados have canceled their landline phone and gone all-wireless. Only 2% of nontechies have done that.


• Despite being plugged in to the Internet and other sources of data more often, only 13% of the tech-savvy crowd feels overwhelmed by information. By contrast, a sense of information overload plagues 25% of the rest of the population.