Five days on the digital dirt road

What are the major themes of the in-person and online lectures

Five days on the digital dirt road

“Five days on the digital dirt road” consisted with interviews and descriptions about Internet access circumstances, mostly in small towns of North Carolina. It divided into five days and interviewees are people living small towns of North Carolina and most of those towns are located in rural area, isolated from the big cities and digital advancement. On the other side, peoples are from different background; farmer, guest house owner, company researcher, so on and because of differences in their background, they show different concerns. However, the worries they have in common are caused from Internet access, which takes important role in nowadays. For instance, Jay Foushee, who is a retired farmer living in Person County, N. C. still uses dial-up internet connection and it works too slow to do basic things, such as checking an e-mail and doing homework for his daughter who goes junior high school. Not even speed problem, but poor Internet connection was affecting his daughter to take disadvantage in her schooling. Like Jay, many neighbor towns are having same difficulties and the phone and Internet companies have been avoiding providing high-speed Internet. The people who are interviewed point out that this disadvantage can bring a digital divide and it will bring worse situation – economic disadvantage – too. Because of its weak access, it would be difficult to catch attention of companies. To sum up, “Five days on the dirt road” shows how numbers of people in the U.S. are not getting advantage of digital advancement, specially the speed of Internet access and how it can be worsen digital divide.