OK, here is the funny thing—or rather two funny things—about my writing on this topic.
The first is that I’m one of the most net connected people I know. I use a computer for work or fun probably eight to ten hours a day and always have email, and IM windows open on my computer. And when I’m not on my computer, my phone is connected to a broadband connection through which I email, text, and IM.
The second is that one of my closest friends is organizing around media related issues and has a particular concern with overcoming the digital divide.
And yet, until today, when I read some responses to a very good op-ed in the Daily News by Hannah Sassaman and Todd Wolfson about the possibility of securing federal money to create a public broadband network in Philadelphia–a network that would help overcome the digital divide in the city–I really wasn’t charged up about the issue.
Sure, I understood that there is a problem when fifty percent of the residents of the city—and an even larger percentage of children—don’t have even a dial-up connection to the net.
But I didn’t get just how serious this problem is until I read a comment on that op-ed that dismissed the importance of the issue.
And that made me think both about the issue and about why I hadn’t taken it seriously enough.
Three reasons explain why those of us who are connected to the net don’t take the digital divide seriously enough.
One is the obvious point that, as always, working people and the poor are invisible in America. So we literally don’t see that so many people don’t have the kind of access to the internet that people reading this take for granted.
A second is that computer technology is still so new that we tend to think of it as something of a luxury. Poor kids need health care, good schools, decent meals. A broadband connection seems like honey not milk.
And a third is that computer technology is so new that its ubiquitous presence in our lives has snuck up on us. We have to stop and think for a second to realize how important it is to what we do every day.
It’s the last two barriers to taking the digital divide seriously that I want to try to help overcome in this essay. To do that, I want to suggest a thought experiment.
Imagine a day without the internet in your life. We’re not going to be ridiculous about this. You can keep your computer. Just imagine not connecting for a day.
How would that affect your work or schooling? How far behind would you be at the end of the day because you couldn’t send email? Or google something or somebody? Or gain access to an important piece of information or a document?
How would it affect your play? How much harder would it be to find a movie time? Or to find a good restaurant? Or to book a flight? Or to arrange a date with someone. (Damn right, you’d actually have to get on the phone with that attractive man or woman you’ve been eyeing.)
How would it affect your political involvement? How much longer would it take you to find out about something outrageous, like black kids being denied access to a swim club? Or to read some commentary about an issue you care about? How much harder would it be to tell others about this or some other issue? Or to organize a response?
Yes, you can do almost everything that you do on the internet by other means. But think how much longer and more difficult it would be to do so much without the net. That’s the burden people on the other side of the digital divide face every day.
Maybe to teach ourselves what the internet means in America today, we should all go without it for one day. In doing so, we could bear witness to the barriers faced by those without access to the net.
This is about as serious an issue I can think of today (Well, after quality affordable health care for all 😉 ) We believe in equal opportunity in America. There is, quite simply, no equal opportunity for those without continuous, fast, unregulated access to the net. Not having access to the net today is like not being able to have a phone in 1970 or mail in 1776.
The rise of liberal government coincided with the demand that that mail be cheap and available to everyone. Governments everywhere created “lifeline” phone service so that everyone could have a phone in the 1970s.
A connection to the internet is just that important today.
If we want to preserve equality of opportunity, if we want to be sure that everyone has a chance to be part of all the communities large and small that make up America, we need to provide, to borrow a phrase from the campaign I work on day to day, quality, affordable access to the internet for all.