Since young people are constantly glued to their smartphones, you might think they are enthusiastically embracing new technology, while older folks fear and resist it. However, a recent wide-ranging eight-country survey challenges that stereotype.
Intel surveyed 12,000 millennials, between the ages 18 and 24, found millennials are among the fiercest tech skeptics. Sixty-one percent of young adults felt technology made them feel "less human" and are the least enthusiastic group about technology.
"At first glance it seems millennials are rejecting technology, but I suspect the reality is more complicated and interesting," Dr. Genevieve Bell, director of Interaction and Experience Research at Intel Labs said in a statement. "A different way to read this might be that millennials want technology to do more for them, and we have work to do to make it much more personal and less burdensome."
Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they feel society relies on technology too much.
Fewer than half think technological devices should learn about their behavior and preferences, a concept that's integral to everything from Google to Facebook.
The group most optimistic about technology's role in their lives is women older than 45 who live in developing countries.
In China, seven out of 10 women over 45 believe people don't use technology enough and 79 percent said it makes people more human. This figure is the same, 70 percent, for all of the emerging-market countries in the survey. But only 22 percent of American women in the same age group agreed.
Bell said she was surprised by the findings, but think it stems from women in developing countries having seen technology dramatically improve their quality of life in the past decade or two.
"Women historically have become avid users of technology when that technology solves a problem, helps us organize our lives and that of our families as well as aids us in saving time and time shifting," Bell said in a statement. "I have to wonder whether this data is showing that women are optimistic because they see technology innovation that is starting to deliver on the promise of better fitting into the rhythms of our days, helping with our specific concerns and needs, and creating new compelling experiences that women and men alike will find valuable."
According to Slate, this survey highlights that skepticism of technology seems to be catching on among young people in rich countries who take their gadgets for granted but fear for their privacy. However, in developing countries, technology is generally seen as an "unalloyed" good.
