The Unevenly-Divided Future, or, Leveling the Digital Divide

This course has provided me with so many opportunities to re-visit some of my favorite pre-doctoral literary favorites, including William Gibson. I finished his novel "Idoru" while riding home on the train from evenings on the town in Tokyo several years ago while on a business trip to Japan. The term "prescient" applies here, as I would look up from the book and still feel immersed into the world that Gibson had created in a slightly more modern Toyko. Gibson has an interesting way of looking at the world, and has a unique turn of phrase in his writing, and I've enjoyed all of his books. The statement "The future has already arrived--it's just not evenly distributed" was excerpted from a National Public Radio interview with Terry Gross on the "Fresh Air" program, November 30, 1999.

This quote speaks volumes, very succinctly stating the nature of what we refer to as the "Digital Divide". A separation of haves from have-nots with regard to technology and information--however, it is my own point of view that this divide is being closed rather quickly, as information access used to be the exclusive province of those with assets and connectivity, all of which required funds. However, we see in today's world that information access and the technology needed to get it have become cheaper and more readily available. The advent of wide area wifi networks, and the affordable cost of smartphones with the ability to access them has made the access concept more of an on-ramp than a barrier.

An additional factor to consider is that with large-scale manufacturing of these hand-held devices, the concept of "economy of scale" comes into play: the more that are made, the less they cost per unit as companies recoup their R&D costs and set-up costs for assembly lines. The end result is that the hardware is almost free, and any cost is the result of services required that are supplied by wireless carriers. These fees have gone down significantly in past years: I recently switched carriers and bought a new iPhone, and managed to save significantly on our monthly household wireless bills by going with a family plan that gives me a full data package plus calling and text messages and a separate line of service for my husband's phone with calling only (he is a phone Luddite) for less than I paid for my original data service only on the other carrier. Once again, economy of scale.

The other example of economy of scale that came to me as I listened to the podcast and vodcast was the "One Laptop Per Child" initiative spearheaded by Dr. Nicholas Negroponte of MIT. This foundation's goal is to provide every child in the world with a basic low-cost connected laptop computer that has software already loaded in order to support and encourage them to learn, connect, and change the world as they do so. The success stories from this program are compelling, and the push for computer literacy as well as basic literacy will help nations who have traditionally been on the wrong side of the divide to close and bridge the divide.

Another initiative that is not so much technical but one which promises to institute change for the better in the world's poorest nations is the work of Dr. Greg Mortenson, the author of "Three Cups of Tea" and "Stones into Schools". Mortenson believes that education, particularly the education of the girls who will raise the next generation of children. Not only does literacy have a direct effect on infant mortality, but it also exposes children to new ideas and concepts that they would not otherwise have contacted. His efforts have been concentrated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and he has succeeded more often than not, even though he is changing cultural norms and beliefs.

For me, the path to closing the digital divide is going to require both technology as well as basic literacy. Together, those two factors create a powerful set of tools for their users.

References

Central Asia Institute. (2010). Accessed at http://www.ikat.org/

One Laptop per Child. Accessed at http://laptop.org/en/vision/

Mortenson, G. & Relin, D. O. (2006). Three cups of tea: One man's mission to promote peace . . . one school at a time. New York: Penguin Books.

Soloway, E. (2009). Podcast.