1 in 10 Americans thinks HTML is an STD

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If you're talking tech with Americans, you may want to avoid using any jargon.

A recent study found many Americans are lost when it comes to tech-related terms, with 11 per cent saying they thought HTML – a language used to create websites – was a sexually transmitted disease. The study was conducted by Vouchercloud.net, a coupons website, as a way to determine how knowledgeable users are when it comes to tech terms.

"Technology is a huge interest for our user base," a company spokeswoman said. "It seems that quite a few of us need to brush up on our tech definitions."

Besides HTML, there were some other amusing findings:

1. 77 per cent of respondents could not identify what "SEO" means. SEO stands for "search-engine optimisation".
2. 27 per cent identified "gigabyte" as an insect commonly found in South America. A gigabyte is a unit of measurement for the storage capacity of an electronic device.
3. 42 per cent said they believed a "motherboard" was "the deck of a cruise ship". A motherboard is usually a circuit board that holds many of the key components of a computer.
4. 23 per cent thought an "MP3" was a Star Wars robot. It is actually an audio file.
5. 18 per cent identified "Blu-ray" as a marine animal. It is a disc format typically used to store high-definition videos.
6. 15 per cent said they believed "software" is comfortable clothing. Software is a general term for computer programs.
7. 12 per cent said "USB" is the acronym for a European country. USB, or Universal Serial Bus, is a type of connector.

Full article here.

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Very interested read..

wow... it is like the doctor saying: Hey mrs, sadly you have the HTML. Please come back next week! >.> really people clearly do not know anything about computer stuff ....wow just WOW

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Originally Posted by Chaos Ace

"Hey mrs, sadly you have the HTML."

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"Mam this is very serious I will need you prescribe you some pills. Let me see.. 1 javascript a day should be fine."

LMAO WOW I was saying to someone earlier I don't think Americans are *that* stupid, but now I've changed my mind.

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Originally Posted by Daltron

"Mam this is very serious I will need you prescribe you some pills. Let me see.. 1 javascript a day should be fine."

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Oh gosh, please do not go to the bathroom often as you do not want to FLUSH down your files & codes.

Omg this is hilarious.
But on saying that most American kids when shown a picture of Jesus don't know who it is. Yet, if they are shown a pic of Ronald McDonald or kernel sanders they know who it is. So the HTML thing doesn't surprise me.

I think this would also depend on the demographic surveyed. I mean, asking 60+ year olds what computer terms are may not give an accurate representation.

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Originally Posted by Hayden

LMAO WOW I was saying to someone earlier I don't think Americans are *that* stupid, but now I've changed my mind.

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Yes because 1 in 10 is clearly representative of all Americans.

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Originally Posted by Immorality

Yes because 1 in 10 is clearly representative of all Americans.

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Direct me to the part of my post where I said "I didn't think all Americans are that stupid, but now I do".

And 11% of the USA (34,540,000) is a gigantic number...

I could find similar polls for most western countries. In any case, I don't know some of them. :P

not really surprising seeing as not everyone understands computers, especially those 40+..

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Originally Posted by Hayden

Direct me to the part of my post where I said "I didn't think all Americans are that stupid, but now I do".

And 11% of the USA (34,540,000) is a gigantic number...

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"Didn't think americans were that stupid" = all americans..

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Originally Posted by Immorality

"Didn't think americans were that stupid" = all americans..

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Didn't specify all/some... verified that I meant 'some' later so point now invalid.

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Originally Posted by Hayden

LMAO WOW I was saying to someone earlier I don't think Americans are *that* stupid, but now I've changed my mind.

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lol i'm pretty sure that every country will score along the same lines
this trend of proving americans "stupid" is so annoying and boring and no one really cares about these statistics except non american teenagers who think their country is the ****

i wonder what these same people would think about the terms 'deleting your cookies' or 'using a firewall' lol

Are you telling me everyone on here knew what a SEO was? I've never even heard of that term.

Lmao that's ridiculous, wonder how some people are so clueless!

Depends who they asked to be fair

I did laugh at the HTML one :P and so surprised that 77% didn't know what SEO meant :P

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Originally Posted by Zak

Depends who they asked to be fair

I did laugh at the HTML one :P and so surprised that 77% didn't know what SEO meant :P

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Please give me an example of why someone would know what SEO would mean?

Maybe I should make myself more clear - why would more than 23% of people ever need to use a SEO?

Plus, the way the stats were given makes it sound like the questions were given as

'Out of these options, what do you think HTML/USB/SEO means'

Meaning the actual proportion of people that actually knew what it meant is probably lower, and some just correctly guessed the answer from the options provided.

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The subjects were not told the study was specifically looking into their knowledge of tech terms. They were presented with both tech and non-tech terms and asked to choose from three possible definitions.

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Yup, the data is pretty much rubbish because the way it was carried out, so I wouldn't read anything into it.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Please give me an example of why someone would know what SEO would mean?

Maybe I should make myself more clear - why would more than 23% of people ever need to use a SEO?

Plus, the way the stats were given makes it sound like the questions were given as

'Out of these options, what do you think HTML/USB/SEO means'

Meaning the actual proportion of people that actually knew what it meant is probably lower, and some just correctly guessed the answer from the options provided.

Edit:



Yup, the data is pretty much rubbish because the way it was carried out, so I wouldn't read anything into it.

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Never seen SEO before, really not surprised with that one. Also curious why they would put such an obscure one with obvious ones such as USB and Software.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Please give me an example of why someone would know what SEO would mean?

Maybe I should make myself more clear - why would more than 23% of people ever need to use a SEO?

Plus, the way the stats were given makes it sound like the questions were given as

'Out of these options, what do you think HTML/USB/SEO means'

Meaning the actual proportion of people that actually knew what it meant is probably lower, and some just correctly guessed the answer from the options provided.

Edit:



Yup, the data is pretty much rubbish because the way it was carried out, so I wouldn't read anything into it.

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Because your aunty works for a company that specialises in SEO. That's the only reason I know :P

I don't see any sense on this pool, if you ask adults that didnt live the computer fever they wont asnwer anything.

But don't they have different names for some of them over there? I know that w3hat we call a USB they'd know better as a "flash drive" or w.e

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Originally Posted by Phil

But don't they have different names for some of them over there? I know that w3hat we call a USB they'd know better as a "flash drive" or w.e

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USB is ugh.. the type of connection/plug or whatever you want to call it it uses? Flash drives get the name because of flash memory.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Please give me an example of why someone would know what SEO would mean?

Maybe I should make myself more clear - why would more than 23% of people ever need to use a SEO?

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Depends on the type of person though. I mean, if you're a boss and interested in websites then SEO is a must realistically. No point having your website on the 40th page of Google - who ever goes that far back?
If you're the website admin then yeah, you also need it.

That's obviously not 23 percent of the people but, yeah.

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Originally Posted by Blinger

USB is ugh.. the type of connection/plug or whatever you want to call it it uses? Flash drives get the name because of flash memory.


Depends on the type of person though. I mean, if you're a boss and interested in websites then SEO is a must realistically. No point having your website on the 40th page of Google - who ever goes that far back?
If you're the website admin then yeah, you also need it.

That's obviously not 23 percent of the people but, yeah.

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usb port :P

also yeah, flash drive is the prevalent term here for that

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Originally Posted by Immorality

usb port :P

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Many things are related to it though. Port (to me) is where you plug the cable into - i.e. the part in your computer. USB plug is the part you plug into the port. USB connection is the type of connection (others are FireWire/Serial etc). USB cable is obviously the type of cable.

Mr. Wiki has a good explanation:

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Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and communications protocolsused in a bus for connection, communication, and power supply between computers and electronic devices

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