5.2 Digital Divide
- Internet access varies between socioeconomic, geographic, and demographic characteristics, as well as between countries
- Socioeconomic - how much money comes into the household per year
- determine if you have disposable income to buy new devices or you have older ones, or if you have high speed internet or no internet in your house
- Geographic - if you live where there are few people, there might not have high speed internet
- When go snowboarding at Vermont, there might have no cell phone reception
- Demographics include, but not isolated to:
- In some countries:
- Computers are not that common in rural areas
- Only a small number of websites
- The internet is used to protect and advocate the government
- There is a high level of surveillance on the internet to protect the government
- The “digital divide” refers to differing access to computing devices and the internet, based on socioeconomic, geographic, or demographic characteristics
- The digital divide can affect both groups and individuals
- The digital divide raises issues of equity, access, and influence, both globally and locally
- The digital divide is affected by the actions of individuals, organizations, and governments
- The following actions could be used to help reduce the digital divide?
- Providing free education and training on how to use computing devices
- Providing free or low-cost computing devices to low-income individuals
- Providing networks and infrastructure to people in remote areas
GitHub pages action – Digital Empowerment
- How does someone empower themselves in a digital world?
- First, he needs access to the digital world, which can be using a phone or a computer, and also needs to learn.
- How does someone that is empowered help someone that is not empowered? Describe something you could do at Del Norte HS.
- We can collaborate and cooperate together. Sharing ideas and thoughts, offering feedbacks and improvements, and encouraging one another.
- Is paper or red tape blocking digital empowerment? Are there such barriers at Del Norte? Elsewhere?
- No because people can always find ways to access the website or information that they want. When on Del Norte wifi, there are certain websites that was blocked from the students, but students can find other ways, such as using a vpn, hotspot, phone, etc. to access these websites. However, I am not one of the students who do that and I am sure not everyone do that, so at least these barriers is not totaling useless.