I am an "Omnivore"

Catching up on my bloglines account this afternoon I found yet another interesting post from Walt at Random; Lackluster veteran: Bias, much? concerning a Pew Internet report that includes a quiz that promises to help me determine what kind of information technology user I am. Since I am a technology sucker for this type of online quiz, I recently took a blogthings quiz and found out I am a chocolate cake, I did answer the questions honestly. Of course, since I could continue to take the quiz as often as I wanted, making it easy to manipulate the results, it does give one pause.

The quiz in question is called an Internet Typology Quiz and was introduced accordingly:

"Do you cringe when your cell phone rings? Do you suffer from withdrawal when you can't check your Blackberry? Do you rush to post your vacation video to your Web site? The questions below allow you to place yourself in one of the categories in the Pew Internet Project's Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users. To identify the typology group to which you belong, please answer the questions below. When you press the 'Calculate MyResults' button, a new page will tell you in which group you fit, along with a description of the general characteristics of that group." (Pew/Internet, 5/7/07)

My quiz results suggest I am most closely related to an "Omnivore." That's all well and good, but since the basic "who are they" umbrella definition of the Omnivore category suggests I am young (uh-huh), ethnically diverse (no), male (no again), and should have a median age of 28 (smiles only), I beg to differ. I do find it interesting that 42% of people in this category are students. Working with students in the IRC on a daily basis I spend a lot of time with their technology questions as well. To be fair, the results came back with a disclaimer that while I closely resemble an Omnivore, "this does not mean that you (I) necessarily fit every group characteristic." While I do have a digital camera and have watched TV online, it did not take into account my intense dislike of cell phones (but I do have and use one).

I guess it could be said in true Omnivore fashion I took the quiz, posted the results here, blogged about it for all asunder, and provided links for anyone else who may be interested.

But I still don't particularly like cell phones.

Tags: Pew Internet, Interent Typology Quiz, Blogthings