Shrinking space between the clicks and the click-nots
I think real, useable Internet access means that a person knows how to find what they’re looking for, how to evaluate sources, and knows the risks of certain online activities. I don’t believe we ought to create a situation where we say that everyone should be on the Web... people should be free to embrace or reject new technologies based on their own feelings about what is lost or gained by using them. According to The Ever-shifting Internet Population report, "Most non-users live physically and socially close to the Internet Internet use is so normalized in America that even most non-users say they are in close proximity to the Internet. " (Pew p. 3) Perhaps some of these non-users fer the social consequences of becoming dependent on the Internet: I imagine that if a kid can do all her research on the Great Depression for her school report, she might be less likely to go interview her own grandma. Her information might be more comprehensive (after she gets past all the sites about mental illness, psychiatric drugs, and geologic landforms), but she would have lost out on that interaction with a living source of history, and her grandma would have lost that opportunity to connect with her grandchild.
Considering whether all kids (or adults) should should be on the Internet, I say, everything in moderation. Kids should be encouraged to drink water, but if a you take a child to the ocean, you want them to know how to swim, have a life preserver, keep away from sharks, and able to come to back to shore when it’s time to do something else.
The Pew Internet Penetration and impact report tells us that "Those in the lowest-income households are considerably less likely to be online. Just 53% of adults living in households with less than $30,000 in annual income go online, versus 80% of those whose income is between $30,000-50,000." (p. 4) I think of how many services are online now—paying bills, communicating with a child’s school, getting health information 24 hours a day, requesting materials from the library, all sorts of educational materials, looking for work. Without easy access to the Internet, we have to spend lots more time and energy to get these things done, and some things are always left undone. The more we can do with the Internet, the more people without access are going to miss out on.
I think there should be Internet classes taught in elementary schools. Computers are so pervasive in our society, and kids are drawn to them, but often lack the skills to figure out how to get the information they want from the Internet. I wish the kids I work with understood the difference between a site that has content as a lure to get viewers to see a bunch of ads and one paragraph of relevant material, as opposed to an ad-free site with pages and pages of relevant stuff. It also seems like kids are drawn to the free music video/lyrics/games sites that are relate to popup ads or spam or spyware. I don’t even understand how these things work. Jusat like marketers target kids because they’re a less critical audience, I think we see the same thing on the Internet.
I feel a bit skeptical about the One Laptop Per Child program. Under the 'People' section (http://laptop.org/vision/people/), there are nine who seem to be educated, probably wealthy Americans, and one Khaled Hassounah, who (though certainly as well-educated as the others) likely is not a wealthy American. Are we perhaps imposing our own vision of what is best for people on them without letting them participate in the decision about what;s best for them? Nowhere on the site do we see whether anyone asked the future recipients of the computers, would they prefer a hundred-dollar laptop, or a hundred dollars? If a hundred dollars could pay for a few pairs of glasses, or a prosthetic leg, or a birth control prescription, can we assume that a computer is what people would really choose? I question whether laptops are appropriate technology for every situation.
Comments
I think the One Laptop Per Child is a good idea, but I agree with your skepticism. Unfortunately this is something in which the effects can't be seen for quite some time.
Posted by: Matt Erickson | March 4, 2007 09:01 PM
Yea the lower income folks that don't have internet access really do seem to be at a disadvantage. I remember the pre-internet days when I had to go to the library to look up various stuff and never felt that the material there was the most up to date.
And then as you had mentioned, the various services that help save time. I'd go crazy if I had to go to the bank every time I needed to do or change something. It reminds me of the end of the year bonus policy for some companies. The people at the bottom who make $25,000 a year get around 5% of their annual pay as a bonus. As the salary of the employee goes up, (managers, vice presidents, presidents) the % that they get for bonus goes higher as well. So if a manager who makes $80,000 a year gets a bonus of 10%, that's 6 times the bonus of the lowest paid employee. Not to bash getting great pay and bonuses, I just wanted to show this as an example of the differences in opportunity that two different people can experience.
Posted by: Blender | March 4, 2007 09:21 PM