雖然比以往任何時候都依賴科技，但美國人對重大科技問題普遍缺乏了解，比如隱私政策、雙重認證或者Facebook擁有哪些社交媒體app。

皮尤研究中心在考察了近4300名美國成年人的“科技智商”后，于10月9日公布了這一結論。調查結果表明，美國人能夠做對關于釣魚式詐騙和網站cookie的多選題，但在涉及到無痕瀏覽以及Facebook和推特的詳細情況等問題時則遇到了困難。

該中心的研究副主任莫妮卡·安德森說，此項調查“有助于我們判斷公眾對科技[人員]所用知識的掌握程度，我們也更好地了解了當前的數字生活是什么樣的”。

調查結果表明隱私和安全問題的學習曲線很長，而隨著復雜網絡犯罪、大規模盜取數據和隱私失誤越來越多見，這些問題正在變得越發重要。美國聯邦和各州監管機構也已經針對安全漏洞、令人困惑的數據政策以及消費者信息管理不當問題動用了大量科技手段。

總的來說，皮尤的調查表明美國人對當前一些最重要的科技問題缺乏了解。在調查的10個問題中答對7個或更多的成年人只有兩成，全部答對的僅占2%。

教育看來對受訪者的表現有相當大的影響。擁有本科或研究生學位的人更有可能更好地回答所有問題，其次是受過一些高等教育的人。高中及以下學歷的受訪者表現最差。

和年紀較大的人相比，年輕人更了解Facebook、推特和雙重認證，這可能是因為他們更熟悉科技。

在所有受訪者中，只有29%的人知道Facebook同時擁有WhatsApp和Instagram，近一半的受訪者表示他們不太肯定。

對于這個問題，安德森說：“盡管Facebook仍然是美國成年人最喜歡的平臺之一，并且多數美國人都在用它，但人們對它的了解并不多。”

同時，28%的受訪者能夠正確挑出描繪雙重認證（即在密碼之外要求用戶提供第二種認證形式的安全程序）的一系列圖片，答錯的則占55%。無痕瀏覽，也就是不保留網站瀏覽記錄的問題同樣難住了受訪者，24%的受訪者找出了正確選項，即防止別人在使用同一臺電腦時看到以前的在線活動記錄。

本次調查還發現了一個大家都不很擅長的問題：認出推特的首席執行官杰克·多爾西。

只有15%的受訪者找出了他的照片，從而讓這個問題成為了本次調查中最難的一個。大多數人，或者說77%的受訪者表示不能夠確定哪個是多爾西，這是本次調查中占比最高的群體。

調查顯示，大多數美國人都知道釣魚式詐騙、網站cookie以及社交媒體平臺大多靠廣告收入支撐。（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

Although more dependent on technology than ever before, Americans don’t generally understand critical tech topics like privacy policies, two-factor authentication, or which social media apps Facebook owns.

The insights come from a survey published on October 9 by Pew Research Center, which quizzed nearly 4,300 U.S. adults about their tech IQs. The results showed that Americans were able to correctly answer multiple choice questions about phishing scams and website cookies but struggled with topics like private browsing and specifics about Facebook and Twitter.

The survey “helps us understand public awareness about the knowledge of the tech [people] are using,” said Monica Anderson, associate director of research for Pew. “We get a better concept of what digital life is today.”

The results reveal a big learning curve for privacy and security issues, which are becoming increasingly important with the rise of sophisticated cybercrime, massive data breaches, and privacy blunders. Federal and state regulators have put big tech in their crosshairs for lax security, confusing data policies, and for mismanaging of consumer information.

And overall, Americans lack understanding of some of the most important technology topics today, according to Pew’s survey. Only 20% of adults answered seven or more of the 10 questions correctly, and a mere 2% got all of those questions right.

Education appears to play a pretty large role in how people performed on the survey. People with college and graduate degrees were more likely to do better on every question, followed by people with some college education. People with high school degrees or less education did the worst.

Younger generations knew more about Facebook, Twitter, and two-factor authentication than older generations likely because of their familiarity with tech.

Only 29% of all respondents knew that Facebook owned both WhatsApp and Instagram, with nearly half saying they weren’t sure.

“Even though Facebook remains one of the most popular platforms among adults in the U.S., and even though a majority of Americans use it, there isn’t that much knowledge around it,” Anderson said, referencing Facebook’s ownership.

Meanwhile, 28% of Americans could correctly identify a set of images depicting two-factor authentication (a security process that requires users to provide a secondary form of verification in addition to a password ), with 55% answering incorrectly. Private browsing, which allows people to browse websites without storing history, also stumped people, with 24% percent of respondents correctly identifying it as preventing someone using the same computer from seeing previous online activities.

The study also revealed something apparently no one is very good at: Identifying Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Only 15% of respondents were able to identify his picture, making it the most difficult question on survey. Most people—77%—representing the largest consensus in the entire survey, said they were unsure.

A few things most Americans understand, according to the survey, was phishing scams, website cookies, and that social media platforms are mostly supported by ad revenue.