The Road Ahead
The ongoing challenges with technology are many. For example, the every-six-months schedule of upgrades for new-and-improved technology tools makes it difficult for lower-income individuals to keep up. Broadband companies are fighting over who should make broadband Internet access available in areas that have low purchasing rates, which are generally low-income communities. Digital cable companies have added telephone, long distance, and broadband to their services. Telephone companies are competing with wireless services, cable, satellite, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone services. Currently, recommendations for providing e-mail, video, camera, and other services through cell phones are being made with the idea that this may impact the issues of the digital divide. However, although most students enrolled in my class have a cell phone, this doesn’t allow them to create, edit, or send a resume for a job.
Many people have little understanding of the impact these new technologies have on low-income communities or minorities. On closer look, instead of providing new opportunities for these communities, they prove that the digital divide has not changed. The issues are still the same. If the cell phone is counted as Internet access because of text messaging, then we need to be clear that this is not the quality access that enables families to survive in a knowledge-based economy. With the appropriate connections, parents can work from home when their children get sick and not lose pay. Text messaging, PDA’s, or digital cable don’t allow access to post to a blog or to work with interactive media components. Children can’t get their homework done and projects completed with text messaging. A mother can’t take online classes after her children are asleep without adequate access.
The focus on these other technologies also distracts us from the bigger picture—building a diverse pool of technologically skilled workers that helps to keep the United States competitive. Further, it keeps us distracted from what is really going on in technology and with the Internet, whose public face is currently white and, most of the time, male. These distractions have come at a high cost to low-income families, especially those headed by women. There are 30 million “working poor” families—a number that almost exactly matches the 29 million families with zero online access. Just a coincidence?
Many of those women who have the chance to embrace technology are able not only to improve their economic status and job security, but also to influence public policy and dialogue by becoming bloggers, Internet radio hosts, and content developers. This highlights the value of access to technology for all women and indicates the importance of getting women from various ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds involved. These people are a part of the “invisible divide”; if such a large population is left behind, our economy can’t continue to grow. In order to close the gap, however, the root of the access-to-technology bias must be dealt with in a more constructive and beneficial manner. Without tackling the roots of the barriers to technology access, the ultimate hope of technology—to create opportunities for all, regardless of location, economic status, or race—will be doomed to fail.
