20% of Brits think Steve Jobs is a footballer

The names and faces of technology are struggling to get through to Brits, a survey by Lewis PR has suggested.

The casual survey took opinions from 1000 Britons from across the country, and the results were pretty staggering. Of the 1000 surveyed, 20% did not know who Apple CEO Steve Jobs was, with 10% thinking he was a Trade Union worker and 20% even believing he was a footballer.

Although more people knew who Bill Gates was, 5% of people believed he was either a comedian, or even one of the Great Train robbers of the 60’s. According to 5%, internet founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee was the first astronaut in space.

The survey also looked at general terms used, such as phishing and wireless dongle. Most users of the internet understand what phishing is, but some must have taken it too literally, as 4% believed it was an “angling method used by eskimos”. What’s worse, a surprising 10% thought a dongle was a sex toy, and 6% assumed a VHD (virtual hard disk) was a type of sexually transmitted disease.

Social networking only stumped 11% of those polled, with 72% using Facebook regularly. However, only 12% recognised Twitter. 12% could not name a single site.

Eb Adeyeri, digital PR director at Lewis PR, added: “Technology and the Internet is playing an increasingly dominant role in our lives, but it is still striking how little is known about some of its key figures, gadgets and aspects.Although many people knew the correct answers, a substantial minority had absolutely no idea. There is a digital divide in Britain between those who understand the importance of technology and those who are either not interested or frightened by it.

“This demonstrates a need for everyone involved in the industry to speak about technology and the benefits it brings clearly and succinctly, and avoid the jargon and ‘geek speak’ that deters so many from developing an interest.”

Indeed some of the results are surprising, especially some of the beliefs regarding general terms and Bill Gates. Although the survey is not focusing on the age groups of those surveyed it seems that both that the much older generations and even the youngest had little to no idea. Could it be people are not as tech savvy as we assume in the 21st century?

You can check out the video of some of the responses here: