美國興起“極客”風
Move over, high school quarterback. The geek is the new cool kid in town。
According to a new study presented by information technology company Modis in honor of Geek Pride Day, one in six Americans considers himself or herself a geek, and a whopping 57 percent believe being called a geek is a compliment。
Americans most closely associate the term "geek" with favorable attributes such as being extremely intelligent (45 percent)， a reliable source for technology advice (56 percent) and a first adopter of technology (45 percent)， according to a phone survey of 1,000 American adults。
However, perhaps one of the most interesting findings that supports this point is that nearly twice as many Americans would prefer to be called a “geek” (41 percent) rather than a "jock" (22 percent)。
Of the people surveyed by the Opinion Research Group for Modis' study, 17 percent said they were geeks。
The results pointed to a cultural shift in the way Americans perceive geeks. While two-thirds of "Millennials," the age 18-34 demographic group, think being identified as a geek is a compliment, only 39 percent of respondents who are 65 and older agree。
Eighty-two percent of the respondents feel it is more acceptable to be a geek today than it was 15 years ago。
"It might be Americans' increasing dependence on and comfort with technology, or the prevalent images of former 'geeks' who now successfully lead multibillion-dollar technology companies, but being a geek has gone mainstream," said Jack Cullen, president of Modis。
At the same time, the survey showed self-identified geeks are not as fond of the label "nerd."
Eighty-seven percent of them say they were more comfortable being called a geek than a nerd. Survey respondents feel the professional fields best-suited for geeks are video game designer (65 percent)， technology engineer (50 percent) and professional blogger (37 percent)。讓位吧，高中橄欖球隊四分衛，現在城裏的新派酷哥是“極客”。
據Modis信息科技公司的最新調查，六分之一的美國人認爲自己是“極客”，另有多達57%的受訪者認爲被稱爲“極客”是一種讚美。該調查旨在紀念“極客節”。
美國人最愛將“極客”和某些優點聯繫起來，比如45%的受訪者認爲“極客”非常聰明、能提供正確的技術建議(56%)、是新技術的嚐鮮者(45%)。共有一千名美國成年人接受了調查。
但能支持這一論點的一個最有趣的發現是，願意被稱爲“極客”的美國人(41%)是願意被稱爲“運動健將”的美國人(22%)的兩倍。
在Modis公司委派市場研究集團進行的這項調查中，17%的受訪者自稱“極客”。
調查結果表明，美國人看待“極客”的方式出現了文化轉變。三分之二的“千年一代”，也就是年齡在18歲至34歲之間的羣體，認爲被稱爲“極客”是一種讚美。而在65歲及以上的受訪者中，僅有39%的人對此表示贊同。
82%的受訪者認爲，與15年前相比，而今“極客”更被大家所接受。
Modis公司總裁傑克•卡倫說：“這也許是因爲美國人越來越依賴科技，對科技、以及那些前‘極客’的普遍形象更有好感了。這些人如今成功領導着價值數十億美元的科技公司。但如今做個‘極客’已經成爲主流。”
調查同時表明，自稱“極客”的人們卻不喜歡被叫做“電腦迷”。
87%的受訪者稱，自己更喜歡被稱爲“極客”而不是“電腦迷”。受訪者認爲最適合“極客”的專業領域是“電腦遊戲設計師”(65%)、科技工程師(50%)和專業博主(37%)。
