And when it comes to being the life of the party, the contrast is even more striking. Forty-one percent of very engaged technology-users like to “get things going” at parties, versus only 24 percent of the reluctants.

  What used to be a refuge for the socially inept is now a gateway for the socially ambitious.

  There may be no greater demonstration of this phenomenon than the extroverted adoption of technology in the form of AOL’s instant messenger, or facebook.com, which allows high school and college students to interact, share pictures, and message one another. Facebook.com has grown to more than 8 million postings and, according to comScore, is rated one of the top-trafficked sites in the United States. Even more popular is the online social community MySpace, ranked the number one U.S. Web site in July 2006 by Internet tracking firm Hitwise.

  If the old cliché was that techno-geeks had no friends, now it is the case that techno-geeks have a crazy, impossible number of friends. The most popular person on MySpace is one “Tila Tequila,” who, as of the spring of 2006, had over a quarter of a billion visitors to her MySpace profile. Part singer, part fashion designer, part glamour model, and all-around hot new celebrity, Tila (turned “Tequila”) Nguyen was recently interviewed on MSNBC by Tucker Carlson. When he asked her how much time she spends on MySpace, responding to and cultivating online friends, Tila replied, “I spend about twenty-four hours a day on there, pretty much.”

  So if you are looking to socialize today, get geeky. From dating Web sites to SMS messaging to IM, people today socialize through the typed-in word. Or, more precisely, the typed-in abbreviation. “LOL” for “laughing out loud.” “TTFN” for “tata for now.”

  This new reality opens the way for a spate of publications in the area of “technology life.” Technology as social glue is a very different story from the one told in the PC buff books or in serious tech magazines like Wired. Net is great for product reviews, but it is not People—Tech Edition (still waiting to be written)—featuring the top ten tunes celebrities have on their cell phones, how to organize a block party, or what kind of hidden Bluetooth mike Tom Cruise was last seen wearing,

  This fundamental change in the role of technology has yet to seep down where it can do the most good—to our schools. While using technology has become very social, building technology still has a ways to go. In 2004, the U.S. turned out almost 5,000 psychology doctorates and fewer than 1,000 computer science doctorates. The result is that U.S. technology companies must import more talent from abroad, since there are simply not enough Americans to fill the high-quality tech jobs being created. But as more and more of today’s Social Geeks become parents, they may encourage their children to go back to the basics of science fairs and Web site design contests. Some sponsored robot contests are taking off. But it will take there being as much prestige in saying “my son the Internet king” or the “my daughter the computer wizard” as there is now in saying “my child the doctor” or “lawyer.” Only then, when this generation of Social Geeks spawns the next one, will studying and using technology reach its full potential.

  New Luddites

  Have you ever wanted to smash your computer against the wall?

  If it was because you were frustrated that it wouldn’t do some advanced procedure—like attach your two-megabyte PowerPoint, or upload your digital photographs without reordering them—then you’re probably not a New Luddite. Just an ordinary PC user with a shockingly short tolerance for glitches you hadn’t even heard of ten years ago.

  But if you have taken a conscious stance against gadgets and gizmos, declined to use the Internet for fear of invasion of privacy, or ruled out dating someone because he or she carries a BlackBerry—then you may qualify.

  The Luddites, of course, were an early 1800s group of English workers who smashed textile machines to protest the changes—especially the loss of their jobs—that were brought about by the Industrial Revolution. They didn’t win, but they’ve come down in history as mythic members of the Resistance—people who fought for artistry over automation, humanity over productivity.

  Today we’ve shrunk machines to microchips and stored our creativity on servers, but our own Information Revolution has produced dissidents just the same. They aren’t smashing other people’s cell phones (yet), but in their own small ways, they are Just Saying No.

  The New Luddites are to be distinguished from those Americans who lack computers or Internet access because of age, geography, or income. According to a 2003 study by the Pew Center on the Internet and American Life, something like 70 million people (of America’s 300 million) are “TechNos”—people who don’t use computers at all. But the bulk of those are aging boomers and seniors who find technology too intimidating; rural Americans who don’t yet have computers at the same rate as people in and near cities; and low-income Americans who still find them too expensive.

  This kind of TechNo will phase out, presumably, as technology continues to get cheaper and more accessible.

  But New Luddites are not people who lack technology due to environment or circumstance. They have every technological opportunity, but Still Say No.

  In 2000, according to Pew, 13 percent of the people who said they do not use the Internet had had experience with it but quit. By 2002—as most of the country was leaping at the chance to get online—the number of people dropping offline had grown to 17 percent. That’s about 15 million Americans who’ve been online and stopped.

  Sources: Pew Internet and American Life Project, The Ever-Shifting Internet Population, 2005; U.S. Census, 2006

  Eight in 10 such people said they knew of a convenient public place where they could go to use the Internet (like a public library), and that it would be “very” or “somewhat” easy to do so. But they didn’t want to.

  Who are these New Luddites?

  It turns out they are a distinct breed. According to the Pew study, whereas most non-Internet users are older, rural, and lower-income, people who affirmatively reject the Internet are young, urban, and employed. One in 4 said they stopped using the Internet because they didn’t like it, it wasn’t interesting or useful, or it wasn’t a good use of their time.

  These people are the flip side of the Social Geeks just described. Unlike those very gregarious people who use technology to advance their outgoing approach to the world, the New Luddites are more pessimistic, more cynical, and lonelier. According to the Pew study, nearly half are dissatisfied with the way things are going in this country today, and over 60 percent say you can’t be too careful in dealing with people. Over half believe that most people would take advantage of others given the opportunity. Twice as many Internet dropouts say they have hardly any people they could turn to for support when they need help.

  Internet-users tend to believe they have control over their lives. New Luddites don’t. In fact, some New Luddites reject technology because they hope it will help them gain control. From their point of view, the technology that was supposed to make our lives easier has only made them busier and more stressed. Whatever time we saved with instant communication seems to have been filled up with more communication. Do Americans work less, or take more vacation, now that knowledge and communication are at the (increasingly calloused) tips of our fingers? Hardly. We even work more while on vacation.

  So the New Luddites are staging their own protest. They’re tired of having friends interrupt personal conversations to respond to incoming e-mails from other people. They’re tired of having their kids come home from school and go, glazed-eyed, into their computer screens. They’re tired of BlackBerrys at the dinner table, drivers on cell phones, and iPods that prevent people from even noticing that other people are trying to talk to them.

  They are striking back, with their pens, legal pads, index cards, and scraps of paper in pockets containing all their to-do lists. They may be less outgoing than the Social Geeks, but they are standing firm for the old-fashioned obligation to look people in the eye and say hello—not just IM them, “how r u?” And they may be gaining ground. As of early 2007, the much touted plan to allow passengers to use cell phones on airplanes seems doomed. Apart from lingering concerns that the phones would interfere with plane navigation equipment and on-the-ground calls, it turns out that people didn’t want to hear other people yakking in their cell phones in midair. A USA Today survey in 2005 found that almost 7 in 10 Americans favored keeping the airplane cell phone ban in place.

  In the last generation, while most people were swept up in TV, some people said no. (Janet Reno’s mother reportedly never let her four kids watch; she said it would turn their brains to rot.) In this generation, people are taking a stand against the Internet.

  And so there are commercial implications. On the one hand, their strong stance may be reflected in smaller ways among even the bulk of us who like technology. Even the most mainstream cell-phone- and PC-users have got to ask from time to time if we really need all those bonus features. At some point, we just want stuff that works.

  But for the New Luddites themselves, as well, there are some serious marketing opportunities. They don’t want Jetson-like insta-food, they want slow-cooked stews and multicourse meals, both at home and away. They don’t want hyper-souped-up cars; they want quiet ones. If they are going to get blisters on their fingers, they want them from knitting and gardening, not from punching tiny missives into their BlackBerrys. The yoga, massage, and spa industries should be on high alert for these people. So should book publishers, crafts-makers, and religious movements. These are America’s great un-rushed, and they are looking for low-tech ways to spend their time and money.

  Of course the trick is finding them—unlike everyone else, they won’t be on the Net.

  Tech Fatales

  We just debunked the idea that high-tech, gadget-loving computer types are antisocial. In fact, research shows that unlike in earlier times, tech geeks are among the most social people in the world.

  But a subgroup of these people—the ignored among the ignored, as it were—are the Tech Fatales: the women and girls who don’t just use technology, but drive, shape, and decide the majority of consumer electronics purchases in America.

  Would you know, for example, from the clunky design of your eight-pound “laptop” that women outspend men on technology 3 to 2? Yes—all that tech advertising on the show 24 is hitting one target of early adopters, but it is the Claire’s shoppers who are scooping up the cell phones and iPods.

  Would you know from the fact that today’s BlackBerry belt clips are no more dress-friendly than pager belt clips were fifteen years ago that women influence almost 57 percent of technology purchases, or in 2006, about $90 billion in consumer electronics sales?

  Like women car-buyers, whom we’ll discuss next, this is not just an up-and-coming trend. It’s not a Brave New World prediction, where in Futuristic Someday, e-commerce and e-lectronics will need to be designed with e-strogen in mind. That day is here. When it comes to buying techno-stuff, women already rule. Women are the majority in law school, the majority in college, and the majority of the voters. Now women are also leading the nation’s high-tech binge.

  Especially girls. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, girls are more likely than boys to use mobile phones (88 to 83 percent), digital cameras (54 to 50 percent), satellite radios (24 to 18 percent), and DVD recorders (21 to 19 percent). Girls and boys use TVs, VCRs, DVD players, and PCs about the same. The only gadgets on which girls lag are portable MP3 players and videogame consoles—although even there, Nintendo made big strides in 2006 with the Wii, designed with girls (as well as boys) in mind and selling well beyond analysts’ expectations.

  Source: Consumer Electronics Association, 2007

  I well remember that in 1976, the Science Center at Harvard was essentially an all-male fraternity, and there are still fewer girls doing math and science as an academic pursuit. But girls have become heavy users of technology. After all, the principal use of much of the technology today is communications, and girls love to communicate with their friends.

  And yet, if you walk into a Best Buy, do the blue-shirted sales guys, or the super-eager Geek Squad, feel like they’re focused on females? Would any woman rank Radio Shack among the stores where she loves to shop? These stores are literally tossing away customers. The new Apple stores with their softer colors are generally more inviting, but no one has opened a serious tech store just for girls.

  To be fair, these stores know they are missing the boat. Best Buy has just begun a multiyear commitment to soften its lights, lower its music, and offer personalized shopping consultants, for just this reason. It’s even retraining its employees so that in addition to counting megapixels, they will ask customers how they want the technology to fit into their lives. Even Radio Shack now aggressively recruits female store managers, and is up to about 1,000, of its 7,000 stores. But, just as with car dealerships, the transition will be slow. Almost 75 percent of women still say they’re ignored, patronized, or offended by the salespeople in electronics stores. Forty percent say they’re treated better if they’re accompanied by a man.

  But the truth is, Tech Fatales have far deeper implications for the industry than just sales and marketing. First, women need to be not ignored. It’s been widely reported that when the first state-of-the-art, voice-calibrated video-conference systems were introduced, they forgot to account for the decibel ranges of women. The camera literally did not hear women’s voices.

  But that was just a first step. When it comes to product utility and design, in study after study, women express different priorities, different preferences, and different concerns regarding technology. They want their gadgets light, durable, and effective—not fast, sharp, and zillion-faceted.

  According to at least one major electronics company, what women want specifically are keyboards that don’t snag fingernails, headphones that don’t smudge makeup, and cell phones that can be found more easily in dark, crowded purses. After all, if women still can’t clip their PDAs to their waistbands like men—or don’t want to, for fear of finding out years from now that cell phone rays damage ovaries—then for goodness’ sake, give them a way to find their buzzing phones inside their purses without having to publicly rifle through all their stuff or miss the calls altogether.

  When it comes to home electronics, women want products that accentuate, not take over, the living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Hence the immense popularity among women of flat-screen TVs. Slim, slender, gracious, and less obviously indicative that football will take over on Sunday afternoons. Sharp recently came out with a flat-screen brand softly named AQUOS, which it advertises not just on sports channels and prime time, but also on Lifetime and the Food Network.

  But apparently—and here is where the market is deeply underserved—girls and women are deeply open to technology as fashion. Cell phones with diamond “bling kits” apparently fly off the shelves. So do bejeweled ones created by the hottest designers in women’s fashion. Yes, there are some laptop bags out there now with woven fabrics and contrasting stitching and special side pockets for makeup—but we haven’t come close to exploring the full extent of gadgets and their accessories as personal style. Ask any modern woman whether she’d rather lose her cell phone or her latest pair of shoes. The cell phone is the center of a woman’s universe of friends and family. And yet, when it comes to integrating this deep part of her personality with style, the best the tech companies can do is black versus blue for the keypad?

  The Starbucks economy is coming to technology—and the Ford economy of one-color PCs and laptops is on the way out. Sony is one manufacturer that has started to make multicolored laptops. Apple allowed for engraved iPods. Dell is adapting to the changes in design appeal of technology. The cell phone rack is starting to glitter a little more in its choices.

  But the question “What do women want?” may well be the most important question for technology-designers in the coming years. Would Windows for Women look fundamentally different from Windows Vista? Before running into its other problems, the cigarette industry was a model of male/female differentiation—different brands of the same product appealed to different male and female markets. Was the Virginia Slims cigarette really fundamentally different from the Marlboro? The tech industry is changing, but it has been so Marlboro for so long that there isn’t yet that kind of spot-on differentiation. Like women car-buyers, this is a case of the market having grown up in spite of the industry—and someday soon, someone is going to come along and tap into it in a fundamentally different way, and walk off with not just a niche market, but the largest and fastest-growing piece of the tech puzzle. If you are a Tech Fatale, you are not alone—you are just waiting for someone out there to hear you.

  Car-Buying Soccer Moms

  The car commercials on the 2005 Super Bowl were testosterone heaven.

  Of the nine different ads for cars, seven of them had as their dominant theme speed, craggy mountains, and/or toughness. Honda Ridgeline’s ad, called “Rugged,” flashed a series of men’s belt buckles up close, followed by their wearers engaging in extreme sports. Ford Mustang’s “Frozen in Fargo,” in which a man freezes to death in his driver’s seat rather than wait for warmer weather to drive his convertible, ends with a deep male voice saying, “We Make You Tough.”

  In fact, of the nine car commercials aired during the Super Bowl, six had no dialogue at all, six had no women, and three had no people at all. In the one that actually had both dialogue and a woman, the Dad chased down his eloping daughter in order to say it was fine for her to run off, so long as she took her mother’s car.

  Detroit (or rather, Chicago, where the ads are made for Detroit) has got what makes men tick.

  Women—not so much.

  Which would all be fine if it were only men who watched the Super Bowl (actually, 55 million women do), or if it were only men who bought cars. But that is not the case. Women car-buyers are not just on the rise, they are the majority of car-buyers in America today. And with women increasingly living without husbands, that number is only going to increase.