Translated material
Who doesn't need mobile internet?
Of the management employees, none of the respondents gave the answer “not needed”
Agency "Moscow"
18+. THIS MATERIAL (INFORMATION) WAS PRODUCED, DISTRIBUTED AND/OR DIRECTED BY A FOREIGN AGENT OF THE LEVADA CENTER OR CONCERNING THE ACTIVITIES OF A FOREIGN AGENT OF THE LEVADA CENTER.
In March, in connection with well-known events, the Laboratory of the Future of Novaya Gazeta and Levada Center* asked residents of the Russian Federation a question: DO YOU NEED MOBILE INTERNET, IF YES, FOR WHAT PURPOSES?
12% of all respondents said that they do not need it. However, this opinion is distributed extremely unevenly in our society. Among those under 35 years old, only one person in a hundred gave this answer.
Pensioners showed the least interest in mobile Internet. The older people are, the less, let's say with sadness, they have fewer connections with other people, less real participation in the processes taking place in public life, the more often they gave this answer. Among those over 65, almost forty percent said that they are not interested in the mobile Internet. But even in this group, the majority still need it.
Among the so-called active population the situation is different. Of all the executives, not a single one gave the answer “not needed”; among students, businessmen, and specialists such answers were found once, maybe twice out of a hundred. Of the workers, seven out of a hundred answered this way.
Among workers, half, among employees - two-thirds, among specialists and entrepreneurs - almost three-quarters need mobile Internet “for work.” The maximum interest - and this is a sign of the new times - was shown by management in the Internet “for work”, 77% of the managers we surveyed. They, and even entrepreneurs, are serious people: only in their environment the function of the Internet “for work” is not inferior in importance to its function “for communicating with loved ones.”
We talk a lot about the fact that people in Russia generally believe in television; for them it is the main light in the window. But now we know
that for those for whom TV is the main source of news, and even for those who emphasize that they have the greatest confidence in what is said on TV, at least a third use the mobile Internet “for work,” and one fifth use it for “connection with the world.”
Both in general and in the responses of each category of Russians, the function of the mobile Internet “for communicating with loved ones” comes first. In many cases it is the chatter of girlfriends or grandmothers and granddaughters, but in others it is a discussion of deals or business plans. Behind the function of communication in all its variants one must see more than just its everyday convenience. The survey showed that the mobile Internet performs a critical social function: it connects people with people. Society is held together by these connections.
We talk a lot about unity in our society. The government also calls for it, and the opposition also called for it when it existed. But unity comes in different forms.
One thing is unity, which comes from the fact that each person is connected in some way with some people, in something with others, in something with others. Then the unity is that everyone is held together by this dense network of interhuman connections.
But there is another unity, it arises from everyone’s reverence for one common symbol, everyone’s support for one center or leader.
In the life of every society, of course, there is both one and the other type of unity. The question is which one prevails. The fact that many of us experienced and are experiencing the so-called collapse of the Union very hard is due to the fact that unity around a certain center prevailed in Soviet life. And everyone was taught that this is the main thing. And when, with the disappearance of this center and its symbols, this unity of the second type also disappeared, it seemed like a “collapse” of everything.
The Internet is designed to provide connections of the first type, where there is not one universal center, but many centers of different types and levels. The stability of a society where this type of connection predominates is much higher. And this type of unity in Russia is now under threat.