2012 Caucasus Technology Infographic
Everyone loves an infographic! This is based on the 2012 Caucasus Barometer.
And here is 2012!
05
Mar
Tag Archives: georgia
01
Mar
Facebookistan.am, Facebookistan.az, Facebookistan.ge in 2012
This is an update to this post about 2011. 2012 overall Internet use here.
All data is from the Caucasus Barometer.
We know that a larger percentage of Armenians (52%) and Georgians (43%) are online than Azerbaijanis (27%) and weekly or more often adult Internet users are 43% of Armenians, 33% of Georgians, and 19% of Azerbaijanis.
Armenia has 3,100,236 people, Azerbaijan 9,168,000 people, and Georgia 4,486,000 people – but that’s total population, we need to look at just adults (since that’s the data we have about Internet use – I fully acknowledge that teenagers are online and may be using social media). According to the World Bank, 20% of Armenians, 21% of Azerbaijanis, and 17% of Georgians are ages 0-14.
So, let’s take them out of the equation – (that’s 620,047 Armenians, 1,925,280 Azerbaijanis, and 762,620 Georgians) – and you have “adult” populations of 2,480,189 AM, 7,242,720 AZ, and 3,723,380 GE. So raw weekly or daily Internet users would be:
744,057 in 2011 and 1,289,698 in 2012 Armenia
941,554 in 2011 and 1,376,117 in 2012 Azerbaijan
1,042,546 in 2011 and 1,228,715 in 2012 Georgia
Thus in 2012, there are about 1.2-1.4 million weekly or daily Internet users in each country, with Azerbaijan having the most in raw numbers, despite the lowest percentage.
In 2011, 6% of Armenians, 7% of Azerbaijanis, and 9% of Georgians (ADULTS) were on Facebook (let’s leave Odnoklassniki out of this for now). In 2012, 27% of Armenians, 13% of Azerbaijanis, and 30% of Georgians were on a social networking site.
Raw numbers then would be:
148,811 in 2011 and 669,651 in 2012 in Armenia
506,990 in 2011 and 941,554 in 2012 in Azerbaijan
335,104 in 2011 and 1,117,014 in 2012 in Georgia
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Socialbakers.com is a website that gives Facebook statistics. I’m not very comfortable using it because of its lack of transparency and because we don’t know where they get any of their data, but let’s see what they say.
ARMENIA
Total Facebook Users 395340 — I have 669,651 adults, so this seems off (although Odnoklassniki could be a factor)
Position in the list 112
Penetration of population 13.32% — I have 27% of adults
Penetration of online population 29.06% — I have 53% of adults
AZERBAIJAN
Total Facebook Users 1013080 — I have 941,554 adults, so this seems reasonable
Position in the list 82
Penetration of population 12.20% — I have 13% of adults, so this seems a little low for total population
Penetration of online population 23.97% — I have 50% of adults, so this seems really off
GEORGIA
Total Facebook Users 969840 — 1,117,014 adults, so this seems fairly close
Position in the list 85
Penetration of population 20.95% — I have 30% of adults, so this is off
Penetration of online population 82.84% — I have 70% of adults, so this seems okay
In the future I’ll look at socialbaker’s gender and age breakdown and see if it matches with what comes from the Caucasus Barometer.
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(This is a copy and paste from what I wrote about 2011, but I wrote it in winter 2012.)
Okay, so back to my original point — I’ve noticed that the Azerbaijani Facebook and Twitter worlds is substantially more active than the Armenian one. (I acknowledge that I’m not up on what is going on in Georgia, but for reasons explained below, you’ll see that it is probably similar to Armenia). Why is this?
1. The raw numbers noted above — a lot more Azerbaijanis are on Facebook than Armenians. (I’m going to leave these countries’ diasporas out of this, but for what it’s worth, I feel like the Azerbaijani diaspora engages with Republic of Azerbaijan citizens more than Armenian diaspora do with Republic of Armenia citizens).
2. Because of the lack of free expression and assembly in Azerbaijan, most political discussion takes place on Facebook. Armenians can do this fairly freely in cafes or homes. Similarly, Armenians can organize and be political active in ways that Azerbaijanis cannot.
3. Language is a big part of this. As I wrote before, users of the Azerbaijani language are at a serious advantage over users of Armenian or Georgian because Azerbaijani uses the Latin script. This is also a special concern when it comes to Twitter and even more so when it comes to mobile phones (only the most recent Android OS has Armenian and Georgian, iPhone has it, but the others? No way). But my overall point is that there are barriers to Armenians and Georgians using these sites.
4. This is entirely speculative, but I get the sense that Bakuvians are just way more wired than Yerevantsis are. The Baku social media scene, beyond politics, is always jumpin’! There are a ton of Azerbaijani Instagrammers, Pinteresters, and other social media platform users. I just don’t see that same sort of scene in Yerevan. Yes, there is a bit of a FourSquare scene and of course people use these social media sites, but not to the extent that I see in Azerbaijan. (Although this may be a result of the sheer numbers!!)
I’m sure there are other reasons, and I’d love to hear comments…
28
Feb
New Caucasus Internet Stats!
Hoorah! It is finally time to release the new Caucasus Internet statistics from the Caucasus Barometer. The data is publicly released on March 1.
I have a TON of posts ready to share. I’ll cover activities, regions, gender, means of access, but let’s start with the basics…
As always, I welcome comments and questions.
As usual, let’s recall that this is merely for adults (certainly there are a lot of teenage users!), but the ownership statistics do reflect households, so it is more inclusive of young people.
Also, as I discussed here, survey data is better than ITU or industry data.
So, let’s get on with it!!
First, let’s look at how many people ever use the Internet. This is not as important as frequent Internet use (because who cares if someone used the Internet once last year, right? That’s not the same as someone that uses it every day.) However, people seem to really care about this.
As of 2012, over half of Armenians, 43% of Georgians, and over a quarter of Azerbaijanis have ever used the Internet. Armenia made quite the jump this year. Notably, there was no increase in Azerbaijan.
Daily Internet use is a more important category – these are people that are potentially getting a lot out of the Internet.
As you can see, a third of Armenians, a quarter of Georgians, and 11% of Azerbaijanis use the Internet daily. Armenia has been making quite large jumps each year since 2009.
I also like to do a combination of weekly and daily users that I call “frequent Internet users” — while a weekly user isn’t reaping the benefits that a daily user could, certainly a weekly user is different from a monthly user! A monthly user is much more like someone that never uses, in my opinion.
43% of Armenians, a third of Georgians, and nearly 20% of Azerbaijanis are online at least weekly. This means that most Internet users are using a lot, which is a bit of a change from the past.
Now, looking at frequency distributions for just 2012.
As I mentioned above, the less-than-weekly users are fairly insignificant this year. But more importantly, the “never” used (which in this illustration I added the “I don’t know what the Internet is”), is still quite high in some countries.
Let’s look more closely at Azerbaijan’s frequency distribution over the past few years.
While there has been about a 10% drop in those that never use the Internet between 2009 and 2012 (and the bulk of that drop was between 2011 and 2012) and the percentage of daily users has doubled between 2009 and 2012, this is still fairly slow growth. (I get into some of the reasons for this in this article.)
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What about ownership? Let’s look at some trends.
Household Internet connection ownership (this does not include mobile Internet – I’ll deal with that in a forthcoming blog post) grew in all 3 countries this year.
Nearly half of Armenian homes have an Internet connection with some major growth this year! (I’ll look at regional differences in a forthcoming blog post as well.) A third of Georgian homes have Internet and 17% of Azerbaijani homes have Internet.
Unsurprisingly then, these homes have a personal computer.
Elsewhere I argue that since 2008 when netbooks became available for a fairly cheap price, access to a computer is greater. Over half of Armenian homes, 40% of Georgian homes, and 21% of Azerbaijani homes have a computer. In all 3 countries, there was a pretty large jump from 2011.
And mobile phone ownership has essentially hit the entire population in all 3 countries now.
17
Feb
17
Feb
17
Feb
07
Feb
Baby Makin’ in the Caucasus
There are a number of initiatives to try to increase the number of babies born in the Caucasus.
But how many kids do people want?
It seems that Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and Georgians have very different feelings on this question.
Also noteworthy is that only in Armenia do women and men see things differently.
But there certainly is a regional component to this.
Armenians in Yerevan and regional cities only want about 3 kids, while rural Armenians on average want 3.47 (obviously not .47 of a child!)
In Azerbaijan, there is a straight line from Baku, to regional cities, to rural people. But it is fair to say that Azerbaijanis mostly want about 3 kids.
Georgians, on average interested in having more than 3 kids, don’t differ regionally.
For other analysis on babies in the Caucasus, check these posts:
04
Feb
Low level corruption in the Caucasus
While corruption is without a doubt a major issue in the Caucasus, many think about higher level corruption rather than day-to-day corruption.
This is an analysis of the 2011 Caucasus Barometer. All differences are statistically significant. Although these questions were asked with a great deal of privacy, there is certainly a social desirability effect here.
People are asked if avoiding paying a fare on public transit was “ever justified” (scale 1 = can never be justified, 10 = can always be justified) and although this is a fairly low stakes behavior, people in the Caucasus were fairly (pun intended) against it.
And what about taxes? There are reported issues with people paying taxes at all levels. But again, people in the Caucasus were not keen on this.
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And everyone’s favorite – bribes!
No one in the Caucasus could justify accepting a bribe or present.
As far as giving bribes, few could justify it.
And when asked if they have given a bribe, NO GEORGIANS had given one! Wow. 6% of Armenians and 29% of Azerbaijanis though. This is interesting given the past two charts.
Overall, I’m not sure if justification of corruption has any implication on actual behaviors of corruption. It might not be justifiable to pay a bribe, but you do it anyway.
I think that it is telling that Georgians are the least tolerant of all of these types of low level corruption activities.
02
Feb
Social media in the Caucasus Part 2 — չորս քառակուսի, dörd kvadrat, ოთხი მოედანზე
After yesterday’s post on my thoughts on social media in the Caucasus, I came across Foursquare maps of Yerevan, Baku, and Tbilisi. I love this sort of visualization and how you can sort of see the life of the city in it.
Foursquare is a mobile-based “game” (it gets its name from an American (?) children’s game where four kids bounce a large rubber ball between them in a square). One “checks in” at places. So, you’re at your kid’s school, you get on your phone and your GPS recognizes where you are and you “check in” to the school. Or you’re at a bar and you “check in.” If you’re the most frequent person that “checks in,” you become “mayor” of that place. Mayor is sort of meaningless, except when businesses give benefits to the mayor. The coffeeshop in my old neighborhood gave 50% off to the mayor!
Anyway, it is fairly popular amongst the geek scene in the Caucasus, so this is a little interesting.
Here’s Yerevan’s last three months of check-ins, as points of light
And close up
And the most popular check in spots in Yerevan (not sure if this is for all time or just recently)
Here’s Baku’s last three months of check-ins, as points of light
And close up
And the most popular check in spots in Baku (not sure if this is for all time or just recently)
Here’s Tbilisi’s last three months of check-ins, as points of light (I cannot figure out how Foursquare spells Tbilisi, so I went to Batumi and scrolled over)
And close up
And the most popular check in spots in Tbilisi (not sure if this is for all time or just recently)
Here is the link for looking at most popular and this is the light visualization page.
02
Feb
Georgians are social, women get out less than men do, and other unsurprising findings
2011 Caucasus Barometer
FWIW, Armenia doesn’t have a chaixana/birja culture.
This was going to be the end of this blog post, but then I figured that I’d put a more interesting spin on it and look at gender as well. I noted some of the more interesting items, but please come to your own conclusions here.
ADDED LATER:
Ask and you shall receive! Here are breakdowns by region and gender and country for each of these activities. Certainly in the regions there are less opportunities to do some of these things because of availability (there is no discotech in my village!), lifestyle (I’m a farmer and need to get up early, so I can’t go to the discotech! or I’m a farmer and I’m too busy to hang out with friends during the harvesting season!), or cultural norms (maybe it isn’t okay for a village woman to do some of this stuff, while it would be more acceptable for a capital city woman).
This is a good example where women in regional cities and rural areas are just not going out to eat, with little difference between the three countries.
Here’s another interesting case – rural women in all three countries aren’t going out very often, although certainly in Azerbaijan it is less. But also note that few Azerbaijani rural men are going out either.