Time Out for the Digital Divide

For the past five days, Linda visited a place in the U.S. that doesn't have a proliferation of connectivity. In other words, she was unable to connect to the Internet even to download her email. What does this mean to someone who relies on the Internet and social media to connect with others in a seemingly well-connected society? Does it matter? Should designers and programmers take note of this situation?

It's a Matter of Choice

You may wonder why I interrupted your social media tools learning process to talk about the Digital Divide. Here are my reasons:

·         I am providing you with the CHOICE to use social media tools. If you can read my articles, then you have overcome the economics of the Digital Divide. Through my articles, I hope to provide you with usability. It is your CHOICE to be empowered by these tools.

·         Many people cannot overcome the economics of the Digital Divide and, according to Nielsen, it may take twenty years to deal with that single issue. Do you care enough about this issue to have a voice and to possibly shorten that time frame for others – even if you don't care to use the Web or social media for your own empowerment? If so, then follow Free Press or join the Internet for Everyone initiative. Numbers count in this issue and, unlike others who don't have Internet access, you have the CHOICE to help them.

·         Dictatorships, tyrannies and other forms of oppressive governments and organizations do not like it when people have a CHOICE. When a population is empowered, change is possible...judging whether this change is good or bad is not the issue – the point is to make this CHOICE available to as many people as possible. Then, those individuals can decide whether or not they want to keep up with the Guy Kawasakis or Chris Brogans in this world.

Conclusion

Although many of you are not writers, you are creative people – you help others with their ability to sell or promote their goods and services to the world through their Web sites and other online venues. Although you may hold back in using social media tools for various reasons (including pampering the 'rebel' in you), you may realize by now that what you have is a choice in using these tools.

If you do not help others with this choice, then you will reap what you sow. In other words, if you don't help your clients get connected, someone else may do that for you – then, you may lose a client to that other 'teacher.' If you don't help your family become connected to the world through the Internet and social media, then you've limited their abilities to learn how this technological world is being shaped. If you cannot find time to talk to your friends about social media, then one day you may find that they have discovered how to use these tools and you may be eating their dust.

But, at least you have that choice.

Links

I don't have many links for you with this article, as most articles about the Digital Divide can bog you down more than enlighten you...if you conduct a search for "Digital Divide," you'll see a score of articles about how governments have taken initiative to help their economically-challenged constituents connect to the Internet. While this may interest some of you, the issues here are more about how to help each other in a peer-to-peer atmosphere rather than a top-down government movement.

Additionally, I've provided you with plenty of links above, and if you follow links provided by those articles (especially the Gutenberg article at Social Media River), you can get a perspective that is more in tune with what we can do for each other to help bridge this divide.

I will offer this link that I discovered: What Digital Divide? When you read this article, you may be led into thinking that a Digital Divide is not an issue. However, this article was written in 2002 – seven years ago. This was well before social media was established as a means of communication and before global recession as well. At that time, all it took was a trip to the library to get hooked up and view the world as we knew it then.

That world has changed and it has changed rapidly. Rather than read articles, I encourage you to leave your computers and go into areas where broadband or wireless is not available. Talk to people about their lack of connectivity. Observe what these folks know and what they don't know. Observe how you feel about having that connectivity taken from you in areas where you cannot connect.

While you may meet with folks who don't seem to care about your ability to connect, you might read that apathy as a defence mechanism. Read more about Free Press and their North Carolina project. You may discover that those who initially harboured the most resistance to using the Internet were the folks who became the most enthusiastic about connectivity once they had the choice to use it.