If one in 10 Americans are to be believed, reading this web page will leave you in need of an urgent trip to the doctor.

A recent study has found that many Americans are not up to speed on technical jargon, mistaking markup language used to created web pages with an STD.

Some 2,392 men and women aged 18 or older were presented with both tech and non-tech terms and asked to choose from three possible definitions, with respondents not being informed that it was their tech knowledge that was specifically being tested.

Download the new Independent Premium app Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Other findings include:

15% thought 'software' is comfortable clothing

18% identified 'Blu-ray' as a marine animal

23% believe an 'MP3' to be a Star Wars robot

12% thought USB is an acronym for a European country

27% imagine a 'gigabyte' to be an insect found in South America

42% identified a 'motherboard' as the 'deck of a cruise ship'

The news comes after a National Science Foundation survey found that one in four Americans don't know the Earth orbits the Sun and only half believe in evolution.

In spite of the incorrect answers, 61% of the respondents in the Vouchercloud.net study said they believe it is important to have a good grasp of technology in this day and age.