I found an article discussing incomes and education and how this affects people who have internet in their households. It started out talking about how when the internet was first starting to be used as an educational tool people were worried that not everyone was going to be able to take advantage of it. It made major headlines in 1996, but now, people are much less aware of the problem. Being in college, everyone I know is online. Both of my parents have a computer and all of my friends do as well. We all stay in constant communication with the internet. I was not aware of the problem of technology not spreading to schools until this class started. This article made it clear that the less education you have, the less you are online. My opinion, and that of the author, is that this digital divide needs to be closed. People are working to try and get technology into poorer areas around the country, but it is hard when those places don't have the funding they need to put computers into schools and libraries. But they can't get the funding they need because no one knows about the problem of the digital divide. The main point of this article was to make the digital divide problem known on a national level again, and I agree that this would help a lot.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=16&sid=58b7f647-2931-413d-b34e-2b645860a1e4%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=lxh&AN=20089757
Video Reflection
15 years ago
This is a very interesting topic. I think it is commonplace, at least where i come from and my background, to assume that a majority, if not all people have internet access. Ads throw up website on their commercials and everything now has an online component. I think it would be interesting to use census data to find out which people, in terms of region, don't have ready access to the internet at home, and how this is in correlation with those peoples financial and economic background. I think the results would be conclusive with what we think, and as you said, we would need to fund these areas with the specific money to provide internet access. I think in addition to bringing this problem to the national agenda, we need to stop assuming everyone has the internet!!!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. Since starting college, it's been really easy for me to forget that not everybody has a laptop and high-speed internet access. However, when I go home, I remember that a lot of people I went to high school with rely on the library, computer labs, cafes, or friends for their internet usage. I think it would be interesting to see the percentage of people who have internet access (high speed or dial-up) and those who don't. I'm sure the results would be surprising to a lot of people.
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