The more tech savvy you are, the more optimistic you are about our connected future.
The number of Internet connected devices in homes and in public is expected to grow to 30 billion worldwide by 2020. In a global survey by Mozilla of 190,000 people across 6 languages, people who self-identify as “ultra nerds” and “technically savvy” were more optimistic about the “Internet of things” (IoT) than those who self-identified as “luddites”. People who say they don’t know much about technology, were most likely to say they were “scared as hell” or “a little wary” about what a more connected world means for privacy.
Respondents on the whole are divided on whose responsibility it is to make the landscape of Internet devices and services more secure. One third said device makers should be responsible, one third believe individuals should protects themselves, and the rest thought either governments should take action or had no idea what should happen.
There are no wrong answers, but fear is not a good starting point for action. For IoT to become more secure, a range of different people and organizations will need to take action.w We need to inform ourselves as well as we can about the devices we chose to include in our lives.
Relationship between comfort with technology and fear of IoT
Data source: 10 Fascinating Things We Learned When We Asked The World ‘How Connected Are You?, Mozilla, 2017
What Internet connected devices do you have in your home today? Among 190,000 survey respondents, less than 2% of people have desktop computers, but already 8% have a connected car, and 6% have a “smart home assistant” like Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home.
Types of devices people own
Data source: 10 Fascinating Things We Learned When We Asked The World ‘How Connected Are You?, Mozilla, 2017