Computer literacy report from BT Home IT Support

The survey conducted by BT Home IT Support, a customer support division of BT broadband shows that more than 50 percent of computer users in the UK think they are unable to fix the IT related problems due to their lack of knowledge in IT field. During the last ten years, the growth in IT and internet access has changed their daily lives which often depend up on these technologies. However, when a problem crops up with regard to OS or internet access, only less than half of the people are computer literate enough to deal the issue.

According to the report, majority of the respondents, both among men and women, thought they were computer illiterates as IT has become a field that is too complex to understand in recent times. This attitude was more prevalent among women than men. Nearly three-fourths of women surveyed (75 %) regarded themselves as computer illiterates while 55 % of men put themselves in the same category. The report also says that women more often get frustrated by IT related issues than men (46 % Vs 30 %) and become the first gender to seed technical advice from the experts.

As for internet based activities, the survey shows different tastes between men and women. More than half of the women prefer to surfing P2P sites (social networking sites) while online games are the first choice for men followed by reading online magazines.

BT Home IT Support Advisor, Emma Neale has commented:

“We have found that more women than men are subscribing to the service. Men tend to call in when they’ve encountered a problem, tried to solve it and failed. We’ve found that our female customers are more likely to call for advice when they’ve got a general enquiry about their computer, rather than just when there’s a problem.