Summary of FindingsBack

1. Personal Technology Adoption among Hong Kong People

1.1 Of the 1,506 respondents interviewed, more than 80% of them (82%) currently owned mobile phones, followed at a distance by desktop computers (54%), private email accounts (41%) and then TV games (35%). When desktop computer, notebook computer and palm-top computer were aggregated as a single category, more than half of Hong Kong people (56%) possessed any one of them.

1.2 Results also revealed that, of ten personal technology tools measured in this study, about one-seventh (15%) of the respondents did not possess any of these hi-tech products at all, about one-fifth (22%) currently owned just one (most likely to be mobile phone). On the other hand, more than one-third of them (35%) possessed five or more of these hi-tech products. Taking the average, the number of items possessed by each respondent was 3.3.

1.3 When "mobile phone" was singled out as a stand-alone item, and the other nine items grouped together as "computer-related items", the possession rates were 82% and 65% respectively.

1.4 As on the relative importance of these personal technology tools, combining respondents' first, second, and third choices, "mobile phone" (61%) was reportedly to be the most important, followed by, "desktop computer" (50%). "Private email account" (12%), "notebook computer" (11%) and "digital camera or digital video camera" (11%) were each mentioned by about one-tenth.

1.5 Forty-three percent did not use personal computer. For the users, most (27% of total sample) reported that they used it for information searching, clerical work processing (25%), and communicating with others (21%). When asked to anticipate their usage of computer one year later, many (38%) believed they would not use the computer. Among the definite answers given, information search (28%), clerical work processing (26%) and communicating with others (22%) were the answers most frequently given.

1.6 Of all current mobile phone users sampled, virtually all of them (97% of all users, 82% of total sample) used it mainly for communication, another one-seventh of the overall sample (16%) did not use mobile phone at all. By the same token, most users (77% of total sample) expected to use their mobile phones mainly for communication in the year ahead. However, it is noteworthy that for all other non-voice communication functions equipped with mobile phone, such as connecting to the Internet, sending and receiving short messages (SMS), downloading and entertaining, an upward trend in their future popularity was observed, especially for Internet browsing whose percentage has increased from 2% to 7%.

2. Proficiency Level and Attitudes towards Information Technology Computer and Mobile Phone

2.1 To further explore to what extent Hong Kong people feel confident in adopting personal technology, respondents were asked to rate their proficiency of information technology (IT) with 10 indicating absolutely proficient, 0 indicating absolutely not proficient and 5 being half-half. Of those who gave definite answers, more than two-thirds (68%) gave a self-rating ranging from 3 to 7 while about one-sixth (16%) rated themselves as totally IT ignorant with a score of 0. In general, respondents regarded themselves as not proficient in IT with an average rating of 4.1.

2.2 Cross-analyses of this question with demographics revealed that males were generally more confident than females when it came to IT proficiency. The average self-rating attained by male respondents was 4.3 while the figure for female respondents was 3.9. Besides, the younger generation (aged 18-29) also tended to rate themselves higher on IT proficiency and their average rating obtained was 5.5.

2.3 With respect to their education levels, it is found that the tertiary educated respondents regarded themselves as more IT proficient than other groups. A large number of this sub-group (60%) gave a self-rating of 6 or above to themselves and their average score attained was 5.8, compared to the means of 1.8 and 4.1 obtained from respondents with primary and secondary education respectively. In other words, education had played an important role in IT proficiency.

2.4 Using the same rating scale, respondents were asked to rate the IT proficiency of Hong Kong people as a whole. Taking away the 28% who could not make a judgment, respondents tended to evaluate other Hong Kong people as more proficient than themselves, as the average score given to Hong Kong people as a whole was 5.9, which is 1.8 points higher than the average of individuals' self-rating.

2.5 Assuming that one hundred Hong Kong people were selected to form a representative sample, respondents were then asked to rank themselves between 1 to 100 when compared with others in terms of IT proficiency. It is surprising to find that more than a quarter of them (27% of total sample) could not rank themselves. For those who could, their average ranking was 65.8, suggesting that respondents generally thought they were poorer than others when it came to IT proficiency. Such result was consistent with the previous findings mentioned.

2.6 Would the respondents make any significant progress in this aspect in one year's time? Assuming their current IT proficiency scored 100, a quarter of them (25%) thought that they would neither progress nor setback in their IT knowledge by giving a score of 100 again. Besides, it is interesting to note that nearly one-fifth of the respondents (19%) thought their IT knowledge would have deteriorated 12 months later. Taking the average of those who gave definite ratings, the mean obtained was 118.0, or a slight improvement of 18% from now. One-third of them (33% of total sample) could not give a definite answer.

2.7 This study also found that more than half of the respondents (56%) considered information technology important to themselves, whereas close to one-fifth of them (18%) believed in the opposite. Another 15% said "half-half".

2.8 Nearly half of them (45%) thought that the Internet had generally made their life better, in contrast to only 2% who said it had made their life worse. Another 16% perceived no change, 28% did not use the Internet at all. On the other front, a higher proportion of respondents (69%) regarded mobile phone had improved their quality of life, only 1% thought their life had got worse, and 11% said it had no effect.

3. Related Social Issues in Hong Kong

3.1 Concerning the government's policies on the development of information technology, one-third of the respondents (33%) claimed ignorance about this issue, 30% expressed satisfaction, while 18% were dissatisfied, another 19% said "half-half".

3.2 Cross-analyses showed that people with primary education knew very little about the government's IT policies (55% being ignorant). By the same token, the older the respondents, the higher this ignorance level would become.

3.3 Half of the respondents (50%) showed confidence in Hong Kong's future, one-third of them (33%) were not, and 17% could not give a comment.

3.4 When respondents were asked to name one problem that they were most concerned with, 71% mentioned "economic problems", 17% mentioned "social problems", and 3% said "political problems".

3.5 Slightly more than two-fifths (42%) claimed they were dissatisfied with the present social condition in Hong Kong, close to one-quarter (23%) expressed satisfaction, while more than one-quarter (27%) said "half-half".

3.6 Respondents were then asked to evaluate two specific social aspects of Hong Kong society with a scale of 0-10, with 10 indicating the best, 0 indicating the worst, and 5 being half-half. On whether Hong Kong is a civilized society, the average rating it received was 6.4, while on whether it is an efficient society, the average rating was 6.6.

3.7 Regarding people's media exposure, "television" topped the list as more than half of the respondents (56%) said it was their major source of news. The second most popular source was "newspapers" (30%), followed at a distance by "radio" (5%) and "the Internet" (3%). "Magazines", "friends" and "family members" were each mentioned by less than 1% of the respondents.

4. Usage Pattern of Downloading Service in Hong Kong

4.1 As a special topic studied in this survey, a series of questions on downloading service was then asked in order to investigate consumers' behavior and latest trend related to this new service. Results found that nearly half of the respondents (45%) had never used any form of downloading service before the interview was conducted even though they might be aware of it, close to one-fifth (19%) claimed total ignorance about it. Reasons for those who chose not to use downloading service include "downloading service not important" (17% of total sample) and "downloading service difficult to use" (10%). Moreover, a majority of these non-users (76% of non-users, or 34% of total sample) reported that they would not consider using downloading service in foreseeable future.

4.2 On the other hand, more than one-third of respondents (36%) had used downloading service before, mainly via the computer. As regards the items downloaded, "computer software" was found to be the most popular (17% of total sample), followed by "music files" (8%) and then "ring tones" (3%).

4.3 For those who had used downloading service before, the average frequency of using this service was 4.0 times per week. However, nearly half of them (49%) only used it once or less per week.

4.4 A majority of these service users (74%, or 27% of total sample) reported that they did not need to pay for the service. Close to one-fifth of them (19%, or 7% of total sample) needed to pay for the downloading service they were using and a small percentage of them (6%, or 2% of total sample) paid for part of the service. Most of these users (39%, or 14% of total sample) regarded the charges for the existing downloading service as reasonable, while one-fifth (20%, or 7% of total sample) considered it unreasonable.

4.5 This group of current users was further asked how much they were willing to pay for downloading specific items. Results showed that close to half of the users were not willing to pay at all. Of those who were willing to pay, the median cost they would like to pay for downloading a ring tone, a screen logo, and a picture message were all HK$2.0 per item, while the median affordable cost for games were HK$5.0 per item.

4.6 When these users were asked whether they were currently a registered member of any website which provided downloading service, a rather high proportion of them (68%) replied "no". In other words, they had been visiting websites which offered downloading service free of charge.

4.7 Results also show that the critical factors these users considered when choosing the downloading service were, in descending order, "service charge" (16% of total sample), "speed of downloading" (10%), "ease of use" (9%), "timeliness of updating materials" (7%) and "speed of getting connected to the website" (6%).

4.8 With regards to the importance of downloading service, two-fifths of these users (39%, or 14% of total sample) considered downloading service to be important to them. A slightly smaller proportion of them (29%, or 10% of total sample) thought otherwise.

4.9 As for the future use of downloading services, "computer software" again topped the list, as 38% of current users (or 18% of total sample) said they would download such software in the next 12 months.