Survey saaays...

[elf]

A grad student at U of Tennessee is conducting a survey about the viability of ebook tech for people in their 50's.

He named it Kindle Questionnaire, which I think is annoying, but I still encourage ebook readers in their 50's to go fill out the survey. I'll see if I can get my husband to go through it.

Comments

[tameiki]

Interesting survey, although I didn't find the questions to be very indicative of the people who are over 50 and their use of ebooks.

Just late last year I gifted the m-i-l with a Sony PRS 600. Took a few minutes to show her how to use it and she's been in love ever since. Same thing with her daughter (age 49). Several of their friends have since gotten ebook readers after being shown how easy it is to use them. His survey really didn't have any questions that could show this kind of information :(

[elf]

Haven't read through the survey, so I don't know the details. I expect it's just "people over 50: do you know ebooks? Do you use ebooks? How much do you use them?"

The mobileread discussion has a critique of some parts; I expect it's like a lot of other ebook surveys I've seen. Most of them don't know the range of ebook readers available or how many *types* of sources of ebooks exist, and they're sloppy about reading habit questions because the author thinks "when/how do I read" and "when/how have my friends said they read, that's different from me?" rather than sorting out the scope of what & how people actually read.

Overall, I don't mind; I figure any survey that involves acknowledging the existence & use of ebooks is a good thing. I don't care if he puts together a report that says "most people over 50 don't know anything about ebooks" or "most people over 50 are good candidates for ebook readers" or "wow, our survey population of people over 50 are all fluent in ebooks." The point, from my perspective, is that he'll be saying, "Ebooks: Worth thinking about, more research would be good."