Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit
To me, access is the physical distance between you and internet access, whereas if you wanted to use it, you could. I see this as a parallel when an employer asks a pizza delivery candidate "Do you have access to a car?" We assume everyone over the age of 16 has a driver's license, so I think we can also assume that with a little "behind-the-wheel" training, everyone should be able to use he internet. If you have internet access in your house, at a library a few blocks away, or when your cousin comes over with his Sprint Wireless card in his computer, I think you have access to the internet. But like driving a car, some users have more skill than others. A pizza deliverer with 18 moving violations probably is not the best candidate for the job. At the same time, an inexperienced user without knowledge of how to Google something is no use to themselves if they are searching for information. For example, in Are "Wired" Seniors Sitting Ducks?, they talk about how younger users take more chances, but also more precautions than their elders. In my opinion, a younger driver is usually at a higher risk for accidents (takes more chances) but also stays up with the news and changing of laws better than the elderly. That being said, the elderly still have their fair share of accidents, and this is why I believe that not everyone should be on the internet, just as not everyone is on the road. In America, we have the freedom to do what we want with our lives (generally speaking). Using the internet and associated applications can be compared to optional things like checking your mail (or even having a mail box), meeting people, or reading the newspaper. So while I believe the internet is advantageous to use for most, it may not work out in a cost-benefit analysis for everyone. Children should be able to use the internet when they have the skills and are mature enough to understand what they will be seeing. It can really help their knowledge-base, yet at the same time possibly be harmful to their lives. So like in many other situations, the parents' opinion is probably best in this case.
The internet's barrier to lower income families has promoted another rich-get-richer scenario. But like all things in Capitalism, there are ups and downs. Using the internet to, for example, trade stocks or start a business, can make someone a lot of money. On the other hand, while many companies do earn money (on the internet and in the physical world) there are others that lose money (although they are not around for very long and are in some ways made into another company every single time). While the internet may or may not take a family in or out of low income, using the internet definitely increases the number of opportunities a family has. As The Ever-Shifting Internet Populations article shows that less income generally relates to a lower likelihood of internet access, I think that that also means that lower-income creates a lower occurrence of opportunities.
Basic elementary education should definitely include internet access. Our youngest generation will be working with the internet throughout their academic and professional lives. I think that the earlier someone experiences the internet, the more lifetime opportunities they will have with it and its extended network of applications. I wish I could quote or cite a source, but I once heard a study in one of my classes that showed a third-world community where the people were not uneducated because they were poor, but poor because they were uneducated. When a similar community had schools introduced, the poverty level dropped almost immediately as the people realized the kind of things they could do, mimicking examples they read about in books. They took more chances, made more mistakes, but overall raised their net worth. While I think that food and other basic necessities would be better to give to a nation in poverty than laptops, I think the XO concept is interesting. It brings back the whole "chicken or egg" question, making me wonder which would eliminate starvation faster. Providing children with laptops may be more like teaching them to fish, while giving them food is a straight hand-out with no skill advancement. The concept of these $100 computers and servers will of course give everyone "access" to the internet. But whether or not it will give them the life they want, I am not yet convinced.