
Computer ownership by country - davidw
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12758865
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apstuff
I've never been to 'Canda' so I can't speak to the issue.

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sspencer
I believe they mean Canadia.

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cawel
And personally I think they mean 'Canada' :)

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apstuff
The list is from 2006. It would be interesting to see the current numbers for
Brazil and Russia given their supposed ascendancy. Plus, half the world's
population live in China and India, neither of which is on the list.

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russell
It's the top 50 countries, ranked by computers per 100 population. China and
India are still quite rural. I would not expect a significant percentage yet.

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cawel
Ah. Israel has more computers than people.

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a-priori
Yes, I'm interested in this too. I knew Israel is tech-savvy (lots of
startups, etc.), but I didn't expect this statistic to be so high.

Are there any Israelis here that could shed light on this?

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nir
I'm Israeli. I did expect it to be high on the list, but that gap between it
and 2nd place is quite surprising...

I can think of a few reasons:

1\. Israel is in a way similar to a big city - a small place and tightly knit.
It's a young nation without much traditions so people are open to try new
technologies and if they work out they quickly spread.

2\. Since Israel's main industry is hi-tech (it's 2nd or 3rd in number of
NASDAQ traded companies) having a computer is seen by parents as important for
their childrens' future prospects.

3\. There is some still kind of respect for knowledge mentality (you wouldn't
know it from the reality shows on our TV channels, but it's one of the top
book reading nations) which meshes well with the internet etc.

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iman
4\. Game consoles and games are very expensive and thus not very popular in
Israel. So all the kids need a computer in order to get their video game fix.

5\. There isn't much poverty in Israel.

It would probably be very difficult to find a household in Israel that doesn't
have a computer. (Not counting old people who don't know what a computer is)

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nir
I didn't think about #4 - good point.

All in all, I think the amazing gap (%50) between Israel and the next nation
probably also stems from the high proportion of technology companies in
Israel. All these companies that go through laptops and dev machines at high
cycles must make a big difference.

