Poor Forgotten as 'Digital Divide' Still Gapes
Pacific News Service, Paul Lamb, Posted: Dec 03, 2002
Though the hype around bringing the Internet to all Americans has largely disappeared, the "digital divide" still separates a technology elite from those in low-income communities. Bridging the gap will require new, community-based initiatives that, in an increasingly technology-driven economy, are in all Americans' best interests.
Since the demise of the dot-com’s we have heard less and less about the "digital divide" -- that late-1990s buzzword for the gap between technology haves and have-nots. Has the technological playing field truly been leveled, or are Americans too worried about unemployment, the stock market and a war with Iraq to give a digital damn?
Joe Booth, a young man I know who rose from a life of poverty and gang violence to become a successful computer technician, says the divide is still there.
"There are programs out there that will help teach people to use the Internet and operate a computer," Joe says. "But many people can't afford these classes."
Some say the divide is gone -- or soon will be. Because more than half of all Americans now have Internet access, they say, and because computers and technology prices will continue to decline, there will soon be a computer and the Internet in every home across the land.
But today, only 25 percent of American households earning less than $15,000 per year have Internet access, while nearly 80 percent of families earning $75,000 or more have access in the home.
Furthermore, a computer and Internet access in the home (or in the school) does not a technologically literate and workforce-ready populace make. Having a television in the home, for instance, does not guarantee that people will choose educational programming over Jerry Springer.
How one uses technology is every bit as important as whether one uses it at all.
While familiarity with the tools of technology and its related knowledge/skills base grows exponentially among the technology elite (meaning folks who have both technology access and an education), the poor and uneducated are standing still. In the poorest neighborhoods I work in, I cannot recall seeing anyone carrying a Palm Pilot or laptop. Sure, cell phones and pagers abound, but the tools of choice on the street are not the tools of choice on the job.
How will these same folks survive in the 21st century workforce, armed with only cell phones and pagers and not the work-related technology, skills and jargon the tech elite take for granted?
I am reminded of a poem called "Digital Monster," written by a student of mine. "The monster had pushed me forward into a new world I knew nothing about. I tried to start a stride but my feet were stuck."
It's time for a serious national initiative to bridge the digital divide -- not the glitzy corporate initiatives and presidential technology tours to low-income neighborhoods that we saw in the '90s. Some starting points:
Some of the above ideas have already been put into practice, but only in limited and piecemeal ways. The federal government is rapidly scaling back its support for digital-divide projects.
If we continue to keep our heads buried in the sand, denying the digital divide, we risk losing an opportunity to take full advantage of a technology-driven economy. Let's not, in the words of one struggling youth I know, relegate an entire generation to the role of "worthless, sign-carrying hobos on the information superhighway."
PNS contributor Paul Lamb is Executive Director of Street Tech (www.streettech.org) and chairman of the Bay Area Technology and Education Collaborative (www.baytec.org).
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