Saturday,
November 15, 2008
Fast Social Networking Slow to be Adopted
by Italians
The
ANNOTICO Report
Fast
Social Networking is not making any Faster progress
than the Fast Food Movement in
This is Social Networking, Italian Style
Michael
Fitzpatrick
Thursday
November 6, 2008
Where in the
world does the average citizen spend just two hours a week online? An isolated backwater, perhaps? Or maybe netizen
figures from a far-off land trapped in a time bubble of its own desiring? Well,
close. This bastion of digital indifference is
Some think this
technophobia is a good thing, preserving the
Turning off the net
Others feel it
has put the country at a huge disadvantage, flinging it far over the wrong side
of the digital divide where
And if moribund
economies are measured by a lack of IT skills, high-speed connections and
e-commerce, then
The median amount
of time Italian internet users spend online has actually decreased between 2007
and 2008, according to one survey by tech trend specialists JupiterResearch.
Interestingly,
what that survey suggests is that although there is more internet connectivity
than ever in
Could it be that
Italians have better things to do? Face-to-face networking, old-fashioned chat
and time to share news and gossip over a game of cards in the shade of a
village piazza, perhaps - the same things that draw
thousands weary of net-driven modern life to
Information
technology definitely presents a dilemma for many Italians, says Paolo Di
Croce, the secretary of Slow
Food International, who advocates a little less rush in all our busy
lives. He believes technology has its place but should not overshadow, for
example, the emphasis placed on real-time relationships or physical
communities.
"The
personal element in Italian life is something that will not be exorcised. So we
have to find the right balance. Just as with the Slow Food movement and its globalisation, the web and email have become our major
tools. Without internet we are not possible, but we must use them wisely,"
he says. "If you can
That
Seeing how the
use of IT has often actually increased our workload and complicated daily life,
some on the side of the more demanding, tech-reliant digital divide are eyeing
enviously Italy
Just as financial
globalisation allowed a few to hijack our banking
systems,
"America and
the UK used to say the Italian banks were backwards, but it turns out we now
have the soundest banks in Europe," said Italy
Meanwhile, as the
internet savvy suffer info overload, Italy continues with older IT practices
that many of the digital generation would find puzzling - Flash-infested
websites that are less-than-functional shop windows, a sometimes poor response
to emails and a bureaucracy that has made it painfully slow and expensive to
bring email to the masses.
Domenico Condello, the technical consultant to a company that is
attempting to bring the internet to unconnected hills 30 miles east of Rome, Comunita Montana dell
"There is
pent-up demand here," he says. "Fast WiMax
services such as ours should revolutionise the
internet in
Italy
Art and
history
"But,"
adds the American expatriate, who swears by his high-speed web connection:
"There are certainly things to be learnt from the Italian way of doing
things.
"I can
But even in the
cities, he points out, where there may be broadband, the cost makes it a luxury
for most Italians with their lower disposable incomes than the
Many who disagree with those policies have abandoned the country, leaving il bel paese - the beautiful country - to decide if it really does
prefer life in the past - unhurried, and happily unwired.
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