Tech Terms And Internet Users

The average American Internet user is not sure what podcasting is, what an RSS feed does, or what the term “phishing” means, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Large numbers of Internet users do not know the basic definition of some of the hottest new Internet innovations and one of the most serious online dangers.

In a nationwide phone survey between May 4 and June 7, 2005, Pew Internet asked Internet users if they knew what certain Internet terms meant. The results showed that some terms were well known, but that the terms “podcasting” and “RSS feeds” were not familiar to a majority of Internet users and that “phishing” is still a foreign term to many.