Technology

Millennials not overly excited about driverless cars and drone delivery

Millennials are not overly impressed with the thought of a world with driverless cars, personal space travel, drone delivery or virtual reality. 

A plurality — 35 percent — said that none of the four technologies is an emerging field about which they are “most excited.” The results come from a poll of 18- to 29-year-olds conducted by The Washington Post and the Harvard Institute of Politics. 

{mosads}Of the four choices, millennials said they are most impressed with the thought of driverless cars. But still, that only registered 23 percent. 

Virtual reality commanded 16 percent, personal space travel took in 14 percent and drone delivery lagged behind with 10 percent. 

Out of a group of tech entrepreneurs, the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs is most admired by 27 percent of millennials. Elon Musk ranks second with 12 percent and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is most admired by 11 percent. 

Presidential candidate Donald Trump — a hotel mogul rather than tech executive — is most admired by 7 percent. 

Again, the plurality, 41 percent, chose none of the four. 

The poll also showed that young people are just as concerned about the collection of their digital information from technology companies as they are about collection by the government. 

Sixty-five percent said they were concerned about collection of their phone and computer data from the government, while 63 percent said they were concerned about collection from tech companies. 

About a third said they were “very concerned” about both. 

The poll surveyed 2,011 millennials from Oct. 30 to Nov. 9 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percent.