What else is new?

Americans Say Next Bill Gates is Currently Studying Math in Beijing

The next Bill Gates is not going to be American and 12-year-olds should start tutoring congressmen about the Internet according to a poll that 463 Communications and Zogby International will be releasing tomorrow.

The poll is the first Zogby/463 "Internet Attitudes" survey of more than 1,200 American adults. It tells us that only 21 percent of Americans think the next Bill Gates will be born in the U.S.; 83 percent say 12-year-olds know more about the Internet than their congressperson; and, that America has turned into a nation of voyeurs thanks to technology.

Internet vs. Printing Press: We asked people what was a greater invention, the Internet or the printing press? And, while the Web is roughly 550 years younger than that little thing Johannes Gutenberg changed the world with, the Internet still got nearly-one third of the nods. More interestingly, is what demographic groups more heavily favored the Internet.

While whites favored the printing press over the Internet by 69% to 27%, only 57% of African Americans favored the printing press and 41% chose the Internet. Moreover, Hispanics actually favored the Internet 51% to 47% and Asians surveyed also chose the Internet by 85% to 12%. (Note, that since the survey stayed true to national averages, the number of Asian Americans surveyed were not statistically significant. That said, 85 to 12 percent is pretty remarkable and probably deserves some further study).

Also, there is a geographic divide on this issue. Confirming eastern snobbery that Californians don't read books, those in the east favored the Internet the least (29.6 %) and those in the west favored it the most (38.1 percent).

The Birthplace of the Next Bill Gates: Here again, there was a regional divide with the east being more dour and the west being more optimistic. Only 18.1% thought that the next great tech leader would be born in the US. More than 27 percent in the West think we have a shot at the next golden child.

This questioned also created one of the bigger generational divides. Those 18-29 years-old think Japan will be the birthplace (35%) over China (27.3%), the US (14.2%) and India (7.6%).

Yet, those who lived through the great Japan threat of the 1980s felt differently. The saw it China (27.8%) closely followed by the US (26.4%), then Japan (18%), and India (16.4%).

Twelve-Year-Olds More Internet-Savvy than Congresspersons: With a top-line 83% to 10% spread, consistency of results across demographic groups on this question the rule of the day. Still, if a interesting nugget could be found, it's that those who said they attended church services more than once a week gave their congressman the nod 14.6% of the time, while those attend church once or twice a month chose their congressman 8% of the time, and only 2% of those who go to church only on religious holidays picked their local representative in Congress.

Loss of Car vs. Loss of Internet for a Day: Of those surveyed making more than $100,00 a year, 31% said that losing Internet access for a day would be more disruptive to their job than their car not starting. Only 6% of those making less than $35,000 felt the same.

Conservatives were the ideology that could go Internet-free the easiest (7.3%).

Global Internet Access in 2017: Here, 66.1% said the Internet will be accessible in any location on the planet in ten years. 27.3% disagreed. Those will college degrees were the least optimistic. Nearly 37% didn't think there would be global universal access. But, only 18.1% of those with high school degrees agreed. Likewise, self-described progressives were the most dour ideology (41.2% said no) and conservatives the most optimistic (71.3% said yes).

YouTube vs. Evening News: Seventy-percent said they would rather watch the evening news coverage instead of a citizen video report on an event. Though, only one year after YouTube burst onto the scene, fully 25% of those 18-49 years old would chose citizen video. Only 10.3% of those 65 or over agreed.

Advertisers will note that of those who have never shopped at Wal-Mart, only 58.7% chose TV news, while those who go to the super-sized store a few times a month pick Katie Couric over Rocketboom 72.3% of the time.

Self-described progressives picked citizen video 30.4% of the time, while only 18.5% of those calling themselves conservative did.

Voyeur Nation. More than two in three Americans believe what Paris Hilton and Britney Spears already know. Sixty-seven percent agreed that new camera and Internet technologies are turning us into a nation of voyeurs and paparazzis. Still, for some reason, only 59.2% of those living in suburbia agreed, while 75.5% of those living in rural areas were with Paris and Britney. Also, progressives seemed to be the least worried about all those camera phones. Only 51.9% think we're voyeurs. Conservatives disagree, again (by a margin of 71.9% to 17.4%).

Finally. A bonus question for sticking with us here. We didn't mention it on our press release, but we also asked: "Which political party do you think has a better grasp of the Internet and its importance - Democrats or Republicans?"

The results:
Democrats: 29.7%
Republicans: 20%
Neither: 12.4%

Those 18-29 years old chose the Democrats (45.6%) most. Fifteen percent of Republicans agreed.

Independents favored Democrats (21.3% to 13.5%).