20% of Brits have never heard of Steve Jobs – and I thought we were all geeks
I’m British and proud of it. I revel in the way other counties see us – classy, funny, purveyors of great music – and would happily defend the U.K. in an argument. However, my faith in my fellow Brits has been somewhat shaken by the revelation we’re not all geeks. 20 percent of us don’t even know who Steve Jobs is!
I’ve always considered the U.K. to be a nation of geeks. We’ve existed as a country long enough to be able to trump most other nations when it comes to inventors and inventions. And some have been the geekiest of the geeks. While at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee headed the team who created the Web as we know it. So if it wasn’t for a Brit, you wouldn’t be reading this now. Which some would applaud, I’m sure.
Unfortunately, our geek credentials are slipping, at least according to a new poll of 1,000 British people. According to BBC News, the results suggest there’s a fair proportion of Brits who aren’t exactly up on technology or the people behind it.
20 percent of Brits have never heard of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. A further 10 percent thinks he works for a trade union, with another 5 percent believing him to be a footballer.
25 percent of respondents didn’t know Tim Berners-Lee was the man behind the World Wide Web. Nine percent think he’s the head of MI5, probably on the double-barreled name alone, while six percent think he’s an Arctic explorer, and probably for the same reason ( a posh-sounding name).
Bill Gates did better, being the most-recognized name in the tech world. But 5 percent of people think he’s a comedian or well-known thief. I’m sure Apple fanboys would agree with both those descriptions.
Buzzwords threw up some interesting answers as well.
10 percent of those polled think a wireless dongle is a sex toy, and six percent think VHD is a sexually transmitted disease. When asked to name a social networking site, 11 percent couldn’t name any, 72 percent knew of Facebook, with just 12 percent knowing about Twitter.
This was clearly a lighthearted poll and the results have to be taken with a pinch of salt. And the figures are meaningless unless they can be compared with similar polls from other countries. For all I or anyone else knows, the U.K. could still be the geekiest nation on Earth, but there are clearly a few technophobes among us that need to be educated.
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January 17th, 2010
If anything, that is a surprisingly low percentage! I know my parents wouldn’t have a clue who Steve Jobs was, as its got absolutely nothing to do with their lives. Nor any of my friends parents. So assuming every geeks got parents, that would take it above 20% already.
Even for people involved in technology, like myself, I didn’t realise it was a pre-requisite that I know the names of all the CEOs of all the companies. I couldn’t name the head of Cisco, or Acer, or Asus, or SAP or even Sony for that matter.
January 17th, 2010
To Dave Parrack. Geeks are a minority. No one needs to know what a VHD is, nor who Steve Jobs is. The survey could’ve been intelligable if it tested people’s ability to use a computer; as that is what matters.
You have to realise different people lead different lives any many are uncomprehendable to yourself, and it is deeply sad and narrow that you even think, let alone write that people ought to know or be like you.
That’s coming from an IT consultant.