For my third critical essay for my Internet and Society class, I decided to look at the concept of the digital divide and so I chose to look at week 6 and the reading we did called Technological Capital: an alternative to the digital divide by Andrew Carlson and Alyssa M. Isaacs and I compared that to one of the readings that was included in the symposium from week 15 titled Older people’s attitudes towards emerging technologies: a systematic literature review by Mengxi Zhang. The reason I decided on these two was because I find myself drawn to the concept of digital divide a lot as I feel that I am not fully aware of all the amazing things the internet and technology have to offer me. This class has taught me a lot about the internet and society, but I know there is a lot more that I can learn that I am not aware of. I know there is more knowledge out there and more that I can access to grow my technological capital.
Week 6 was fascinating to me as it talked about technology growing across the world and slowly reaching countries that had never experienced it before. These countries were new to this advanced technology and needed to catch up to keep up with the rest of the world globally if they wanted to be able to keep competing in all the markets especially economically, culturally, and socially. The paper explained the inequalities certain countries faced as they were behind and were trying to catch up to countries that had much more capital and had the resources needed to keep up with the demands and knowledge to keep them in the game. It specifically talked about awareness, knowledge, access, and technological capacity as being the amounts of technical capital needed for an individual or country to have to be able to compete and feel like they can be part of the game when it comes to being relevant as the world keeps moving forward at a faster pace. The article gave a great example as it talked about South Africa and a study that was done there with small business owners as they were getting them ready for the FIFA World Cup that was going to be held there. These business owners needed help as an influx of tourists would descend into their towns and business would skyrocket. Mobile phones and internet connectivity could help them with their business but only if they were aware and had knowledge of how to access this technology and how to use it. Awareness, knowledge, and access would give them an advantage in this situation.
The second article I read takes a different approach to the digital divide as it doesn’t talk about lack of access to technology but more about how technology can be explained to an aging society so that they can utilize it to communicate and take care of themselves. It talks about technology also as being used only if it is socially acceptable, which I found interesting. While technology is seen as a good thing many people do see it also as a big change and some even fear it will replace things they are used to. I remember many people held on to their landlines long after cell phones became the norm as it was comfortable to have it inside their home. Social media is another interesting topic in my opinion, and I found the topic interesting in the reading as well. The influence of family was very important to a lot of people on whether they joined social media which is what I experienced in my life as well. When I decided to leave social media, it was my aunt and uncle in Australia who “convinced” me to just keep Facebook so that they could still see what I was up to. Family and friends can be very influential when it comes to your decisions in life, and deciding to join or leave social media can be one of those decisions as well. Another fascinating part of the reading talked about doctors encouraging telehealth services and medical technologies and such. Older generations see doctors as people with authority and so they easily believe them and will accept their advice when it comes to purchasing technology. But again, without awareness and knowledge people do not know they have access to these types of technologies and so there is a divide but without the right information being given to the right people that divide cannot be breached and people’s technological capacity cannot grow.
After examining the digital divide from both angles, it was interesting to see them both gravitate back to the basics that are awareness, knowledge, access, and technological capital. The technological literacy talked about in both articles were very different but they both reached the same conclusion that they could both be solved by making the individual aware of the problem and providing them with the knowledge they needed and giving them access to technology to increase their technological capacity. While I was not thrilled to join a Facebook group at the beginning of the semester as part of the curriculum for this class, I have learned a lot by doing so. Each week I had to interact and see what I learned from the readings in action. I was able to scour the group to see if I could pinpoint what I had learned and read about and find it online. Each week I gave myself a challenge to find something either in my group that related to my readings, or I would try to find it somewhere else online. When we talked about the digital divide, I remember talking about Facebook in my Internet Community Journal post and how I was able to reach out to my group for one of my other classes and I got 70 responses back. My awareness of the internet has increased in this class, my access has stayed the same as I am privileged to have good Wi-Fi, my knowledge increases daily, and so because of all this my technological capacity has grown immensely too.
Sources:
Carlson, A., & Isaacs, A. M. (2018). Technological Capital: An alternative to the digital divide.
Journal of Applied Communication Research, 46(2), 243–265.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2018.1437279
Zhang, M. (2023). Older people’s attitudes towards emerging technologies: A systematic literature review. Public Understanding of Science, 32(8), 948–968.
https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625231171677
[Paper written for SOC 3690 class UVU Spring 2024]
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