Bridging the Digital Divide
Below, Andrew rightly laments the digital divide, and worries that, rather than beginning to dissolve economic and class inequalities, the Internet might actually reinforce the differences.
After all, broadband access is not cheap; others have suggested that the digital divide marks yet another gap between the haves and have nots.
But I think the "divide" is not so much a matter of cost and income, but rather, a matter of differences in what people enjoy. Most people just are not that interested in spending their time becoming informed. Our school systems (private as well as public) don't tend to encourage intellectual curiosity.
In addition, there is a huge generation gap. Many people over the age of, say, 50, are not interested in struggling to learn how to use the Internet. It really is much, much harder for older people. I've seen perfectly intelligent people give up. They would rather read a book. You could offer them Internet service for free, and they would say 'no thanks.'
An aside: One reason we don't make widespread use of health care information technology (i.e. medical records) in our hospitals is because a surprising number of physicians over the age of 50 or so . . .
don't know how to use a computer--many don't even know how to type. (Someone else has always done it for them.) And in this country, no one can insist that a doctor in private practice must learn. When Cedars Sinai in California spent a fortune on an IT system the doctors rebelled--and they had to give up on it.
If you look at the polls you also find that even people who use the Internet many hours a week don't use it to gather or share information. According to a Stanford study, about 57% of the time Americans spend on line is devoted to email, instant messaging, or chat rooms. http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/06/america-the-growing-digital-divide/. Twenty-percent of the time is spent playing games, 10 percent shopping. Another ??? percent is spent trawling for porn (for obvious reasons this doesn't show up as well in the polls, but it's a huge category) and ?? percent is spent gambling (another big category that people are less likely to talk about). These numbers are from 2005, so they're a little old, but still, telling.
Finally, the study shows that the "divide" is defined largely by education and age--not by income. (It's worth noting that for those who can't afford broadband, 98% of U.S. libraries now offer free Internet access to the public. )
But I think we'll bridge the divide as a generation of children who learned how to use the Internet in school grows up. In the meantime, we need to make sure public schools have excellent access--and enough computers. That's where we need to spend money.
We also need to get the schools to concentrate on teaching children to use the Internet not just to play games, or find facts but to ask themselves (and each other) interesting questions --and then see how quickly they can find the answers on line. By learning to Google, they may develop a sense of intellectual curiosity.
We live in a country where a huge majority of our citizens were convinced that Saddam led the assault on our country on 9/11, in spite of readily available evidence to the contrary. We live in a country where a total failure as president was reelected with a bigger electoral college vote total than his original "victory". None of this says anything about our ability to use the internet, in my opinion, but it says a lot about our general level of intellectual ability. I haven't seen anything to make me believe that ability will improve with future generations. As the old saying goes, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him read the newspapers, surf the net, watch PBS, and do some analytical thinking."
Hoppy in Sacramento
May 8, 2007 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sort of second-generation, although not strictly because I started out with X.25 rather than IP packet switching, and I'm a mere 58. I only have a T-shirt from the SecondTCP/IP Interoperability Conference, which became Interop.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
May 8, 2007 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're 58, and you worked on research papers in 1962 (your previous comment). Quite the whiz kid!
May 8, 2007 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure you want teachers to teach kids how to use Google.
I mean, aren't teachers supposed to teach things at which they're actually better than kids are?
May 8, 2007 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you referring to my research writing honors program? What's wrong with having a high school enrichment course on using a research library?
Certainly, in my high school, 9th graders were expected to be able to do at least one term paper on self-selected topic, and using resources beyond an encyclopedia. I still remember mine from 9th grade world history, on the Kerensky Revolution, and taking life in hand to go from the suburbs to the main branch of the Newark Public Library.
Again, it was an intense school system, but with teacher and parent help, I was able to get some mentoring for my 8th grade science fair project from a microbiology professor at Seton Hall.
-
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
May 8, 2007 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know how to teach it, but what people need to learn is curiosity. Doing research is enjoyable if you want to learn about something, just because learning something new is enjoyable. I don't see much of that around me. I am 71, I learned my basic computer knowledge from buying a Commodore 64 just to see what I could do with it. I had a couple of two hour courses in using an IBM PC back when I was working, a course on using an Apple Mac during that same time frame, and a partial course in using the French computer aided design system, again in that same time frame.
I enjoyed all of that learning, and have since taught myself to do lots of fun things with a computer. Age has nothing to do with learning ability. If the desire is there, you learn.
Hoppy in Sacramento
May 8, 2007 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some of the best coaches were only mediocre players of their sport, although they knew everything about it and could help others reach their potential. I'm reminded of one of Spider Robinson's bittersweet lines: "imagine a supremely gifted basketball player who is four feet tall."
To address search engines specifically, it's one thing to learn to retrieve things with the engine itself. It's quite another to evaluate the things retrieved for validity. One of the challenges of getting medical information from the Internet may be knowing, for example, when a given study meets the criteria for avoiding statistical bias. In another direction, I find that so many of the direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads are misleading right up to the edge of where the FDA would have to crack down.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
May 8, 2007 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not so sure about your numbers. According to the latest Pew Research poll, internet usage generally reflects the U.S. population. 146 million adults are on line, 42% have broadband connections. 1 in 3 Americans spend 3 or more days a week gathering news from a content aggregator such as Google or Yahoo. 91% use search engines to research and find information, 67% to get news.
The study by the Dept. of Ed. found that 99% of schools are connected to the internet and nationwide, 72% of first graders use a computer at least once a week.
Harris found that 70% of the 50 -64 age cohort use the internet, with that cohort being the fastest growing in internet usage up 12% since 2000.
According to HON, over 60% of medical professionals log on from work, while 78% log on at home. 45% report using the internet to communicate with patients and 70% use the internet for research. The most cited reason why medical professionals don't make use of the internet, isn't lack of skills, that is less than 24%, but lack of time.
May 8, 2007 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
That probably says more about the efficiency of the paperless touch screen voting machines doing what they were designed to do than an intellectual failing of the citizenry.
The real failure of intelligence will be letting those vote stealing atrocities remain in our polling places; we will deserve the succession of GW Bushes we will get if we don't remove them.
May 8, 2007 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maggie, you need to improve your research skills. Nearly everyone I know in my age group- 58- is happily using the Internet these days- even one without a high school diploma. Of course, I don't know that many physicians. We had this discussion yesterday at Firedoglake.
B
May 9, 2007 5:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps one other thing needs to be taken into account here, and I'm sure the data is available someplace, but not in the areas where I do my normal prowling. Regarding broadband, when did it become available where, and in what form? I know this is anecdotal, but here's my experience:
I became hooked into the Internet via dial-up (AOL) about 1996. That was the only option for me--perhaps for everyone, for all I know. I live in Rhode Island, and when cable came here, it came in the form of monopoly service by town. When I heard about Broadband, I wanted it. But the cable service in my town didn't offer it. Every other cable service in the state did. The other option was DSL, but the local exchange couldn't handle it...something about the nature of the wires, I don't know; but evidently my area had the oldest service in the state. So for more than three years I knew about broadband, wanted broadband, but had no access to it. Well, I could have put a satellite dish on my house, I suppose, but I didn't want that for all sorts of reasons, one of which being aesthetic.
So I bided my time, and eventually a second exchange came into my area, I had a second line installed and DSL'd myself. I could have had the old line taken out, but I didn't want to go to the bother of telling all the telemarketers how to get hold of me. At about the same time, my cable company lost its monopoly and magically started to offer broadband service...fancy that.
So now I'm highly wired--on caffeine, very highly wired. My point is that there may still be parts of the country where broadband isn't readily accessible, or may be newer than it is here. After all, Rhode Island isn't exactly in the middle of nowhere, even if New Yorkers think it is. <snicker>
aMike
Oh, BTW, those curious about senior citizens (hey, I'm one) might find these statistics interesting, though two and one-half years old. There are also service learning projects where the usual roles of elders/youngsters are reversed. I think there's an organization which does this regularly, though I can't find it in my notes currently.
May 9, 2007 6:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's amazing that in 2007 there is still so much area NOT covered in the US by broadband. Of course there are lame excuses like HughesNet which offer what can only be described as last resort before dialup (in some cases comparable to dialup over the satellite); certainly not a good value for the price.
And it's amazing that broadband costs so much, especially when compared to the rest of the world.
As far as old people getting frustrated on using the internet, they should try it with an Apple OS, not Windows.
May 9, 2007 7:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I build medical systems. Yes, some older physicians dislike typing, while others see the benefits. My general observation is the more a physician of any age is academic/research oriented (and yes, this includes people in office practice), the more they need the benefits. My opthalmologist is not young, but he is part of a network of opthalmologists that share retinal photographs for quality control and learning.
For both physicians and nurses, some of our hospital systems use touch-screen or similar technology with icons. This works quite well for such things as bed status, transfers, etc. A visual metaphor with a mouse or light pen works very well for functions involved in moving things from here to there.
For physicians that either don't type, or for whom it isn't convenient to get to a keyboard (e.g., a surgeon wanting to dictate notes just after surgery), we use various intranet/VoIP and secure Internet services to let them dictate, transfer voice files to a transcriptionist, and then send the draft back to the clinician for review.
In hospitals, there is a great deal of information from sensors that no one has to key. VisICU, a spinoff from Johns Hopkins, supports ICUs in small hospitals that cannot justify a full-time 24/7 intensive care physician, but can have advanced practice nurses 24/7. The intensivist physicians have telemetry of all relevant signals and can give the same orders as if they were present -- and yes, they can see and listen to the patient if needed.
One of the key things here is not assuming the Internet equals the public Web.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
May 9, 2007 7:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the comments.
It's interesting to hear about individual experiences. I suspect that Internet users over the age of 50 or 55 flock together, so you tend to know each, creating the impression that a large percentage of people in your cohort are active Internet users.
But research (professional polls of large groups) shows that the generation gap is real.
In addition to the Stanford study that I cited in my original post, the May 2007 Pew poll confirms the same rough demographics. (This is the study that Andrew cited in his original post.)
But first, responses to a couple of specific comments:
Bev D--I'm not sure which Pew study you are referring to, but I suspect that it is an older 2006 study which simply shows 73% said they were Internet users--not how much they use it. .
And Betty-- thanks for the advice about honing my research skills, but perhaps you'll agree that Andrew, who is the associate editor of tmpcafe, knows how to do research.
And he kicked this discussion off (see his post below mine) by looking at the 64-page newest ( May 2007 ) Pew report that showed that "49% of all Americans use the Internet only occasionally or not at all."
Andrew concluded that: "a majority of the country . . . [has] seen little or nothing at all of this radical new future. A new study released yesterday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that the usage gap is growing because while the speed of adoption at the top is quick and interest is broad, many at the bottom have either no access or no interest."
Here's a little more detail on older users. Specifically, this newest Pew report show that 50% of Americans over the age of 65 and 24% of those 50 to 64 have no Internet connection whatsoever.
Another 22% of those over 65 and 25% of those 50 to 64 say they are “indifferent” to the Internet: they have a connection but.”it does not play a central role in their lives.” And only 6% of Internet users in this group say that it would be “very hard to give up Internet and e-mail.”
Finally, another 11% of those over 65 and 32% of those 50 to 64 say they are “connected but hassled.” Although hey are more likely than the average Internet user to have broadband they are “decidedly unenthusiastic,” feel “overloaded with info” , do not feel that the Internet “makes them more productive,” etc.
By contrast, only 8% of those 18 to 19 say they have no access; only 17% are “indifferent” and only 12% report that they are connected but hassled.
May 9, 2007 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect more meaningful data would come from considering not only age, but also socioeconomic status and education. In particular, the age-defined data should be compared not only to other age-defined cohorts, but to cohorts of the same age but different SES and education, and also to different age cohorts of the same SES and education.
While I admittedly was dealing with patients of high SES and education, I was involved with one study of pacemaker users, in which 74% said they would be willing and able to do home monitoring via home computers, rather than the telephone couplers commonly used. I would note, incidentally, that broadband would not be necessary for much of home medical monitoring; dialup would be quite adequate. All too many studies appear to equate Internet access with the availability of broadband connectivity.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
May 9, 2007 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Howard-- I agree socioeconomic status and education also are important.
The Standford report shows that education is signifcantly more important than wealth.
The 64-page Pew report slices and dices the demographics every way imaginable.
It showes that the average age of the 15% who use the Internet least (i.e. almost not at all) is 64.
The average age of the 8% that are most active, blogging and using the Internet to express their views is 28 --and half of those most active users are under 30.
About 40% of that group have a college degree--many others are students, so don't yet have the degreee.
I think it's interesting that roughly an equal percentage (around 40%) of those who say they are "connected but hassled" have a college degree . . .
May 9, 2007 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd invert some of those figures, and, frankly, I'd rather go beyond simple crosstabulation into correlation. For example, I'd be interested to see single and multiple correlation between active Internet usage, education, and SES within the age cohorts.
While the singular of data is not anecdote, there are active posters here over 60, and quite a number over 50.
Of the "connected but hassled", with degrees, it would be interesting to see if the hassle factor goes down with age, perhaps suggestive of more academic Internet exposure. It would also be relevant to see not just degree, but type of degree.
Tom Wright may want to chip in here, but while it would be expected that people with advanced education in hard sciences and education, and probably quantitative social sciences, are more likely to be comfortable, it has been my observation that musicians often are highly mathematically and computationally literate. It's been suggested that the ability to transpose musical keys has a strong cognitive resemblance to the operations of cryptography. Anecdotal support of this includes that the excellent performance of the USS Arizona band, who had been giving a shore concert at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, when assigned to the FRUPAC communications intelligence unit. The NSA jazz ensemble is well known in the DC area.
Does the report have any commentary on those older adults who are responsible for the design and implementation of the Internet and its predecessor networks?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"There are three classes of people: those who deal well with binary logic, and those who do not."
May 9, 2007 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
If 50% of those over 65 don't have Internet connectivity I guess that means that 50% of those over 65 do have Internet connectivity. Seems like a kerfluffle over not much. In a previous comment in this chain I linked to a 2004 story on Senior Journal indicating that in the 80 largest media markets the seniors are the fastest growing group of Internet users. Maybe this is just catching up.
But this also suggests that there may be a rural/urban split here as well. The rural population of the United States is older than the urban population is. Rural America was/is the last to have access to cable or DSL service...not enough users per mile of cable laid to make laying the cable worthwhile.
aMike
May 9, 2007 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
NoblesseOblige says
<boastful stance> I am better than they are. </boastful stance>
aMike
May 9, 2007 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mike and Howard --Of course,there are many people over 50 and over 60 using the Internet. No one is disputing that. It's just that when you look at the trends, use is much greater, and growing much faster, among younger people.
This is essentially good news: it means that, with time, the vast majority of people of all income levels are likely to be actively online--doing more than just e-mailing.
Howard, in reponse to your question about those who are "connected but hassled"-surprisingly, 45% of those who falll into this cateogry are relatively young (30 to 49), vs.32% of those 50 to 64 and 11% of those over 65. Also, 59% of those in this group are female.
I take this to mean that are a large number of peole in their 30s and 40s who feel that they must be connected to the Internet, and must use it, at home and at work, but don't really like it. many would prefer that people left messages on their phones rather than e-maling. But at their age, they feel they have no choice but to participate, at least to some degree, in the information revolution.
By contrast, people over 50--and certainly people over 65 -- are more likely to particpate because they want to. So while a smaller percentage of this group goes on the Internet--and a relatively small group uses it to blog, they learn how to use it well enough that they are not frustrated. This is in large part because they have more time than people in their 30s and 40s who are working full-time, raising children, etc.
Also, there is a surprisnlgy strong positive correlation between being unemployed and using the Internet--again, I think this speaks to having free time.
May 9, 2007 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Divide this at the conjunction.
Time will take care of all this, anyhow. I began playing with this stuff in my early 50s. Now I'm 66. I gather that ten years down the road I'll still be playing with it as long as I remember to breathe regularly until then. In the meantime, the 50 somethings will be transformed into the 60 somethings, the 40 somethings into 50 somethings, and the total population wired will increase. (I assume that once on board always on board, at least for the majority of users).
aMike
May 9, 2007 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
amike--
Point taken.
I think you're right: As the boomers have more time, (i.e., as the harried 40-somethings with kids become 50-somethings and the 50-somethings become retired sixty-somethings) they too, may well become more active on the Internet.
But I think that what's really important on blogs is more diversity in terms of class and race. I'm hoping that as today's children ( and today's 18-29 year-olds ) grow up, we'll see more lower-income people, and more African-Americans and Latinos participating on blogs.
That's when we can really begin to learn from each other-- things that we don't know.
May 9, 2007 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
A factor often overlooked is that for most purposes today, to make effective use of the Internet, one has to be a reasonably decent typist. If speech recognition technology becomes more mainstream, as I believe it is becoming, it will lower a barrier to entry for a wide range of people.
When I worked for one computer science research lab in the late eighties, it was amusing that our CEO, a retired general, happily used email. He told me that as a young officer, mostly in intelligence (much of it before computers), he had to learn to type. In contrast, our VP of engineering, who had made extensive use of keypunch operators in England, did not type well and was a running joke in needing help with email.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
May 9, 2007 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only half jokingly, I've said that the typing class I took in 10th grade (1957) was the most important class I took there. I was one of two boys. Had I been brave enough, I would have taken shorthand as well. :-)
aMike
May 9, 2007 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's funny to find which courses, and perhaps extracurricular activities, turn out to be more valuable than "core" courses. Now, I managed to both have the highest typing speed in my class, and also failed the course, because I looked at the keys; I'm now a true touch typist.
My dramatics courses were immensely valuable in presentations and the like, while it took me several years to unlearn all the mathematical misinformation from my high school courses.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
May 9, 2007 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
The keys in our typing room had no letters on them. Mechanical machines of course. Now I consider typing as aerobics for the pinkies. :-)
aMike
May 9, 2007 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know who might still be following this thread...
...but anyone still around who missed the story, When finding a job just doesn't compute, on Market Place from NPR. Woke me up from a late afternoon nap, how about that? Anyhow... among other goodies, was this tidbit:
The program targets laid-off textile workers and retirees.
aMike
May 10, 2007 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
My 80-year-old grandma has a MySpace page. True, she established it mainly so she could view the newest pictures of the great-grandbabies, but still.... In contrast, my 90-year-old grandfather (other side of the family) owns neither a computer nor an answering machine.
May 15, 2007 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the things about being comfortable about a technology is knowing when not to use it. There are few better examples than being disciplined in webpage design: use multimedia when it conveys information, rather than Makes An Artistic Statement.
For example, I regard a cell phone as a very convenient thing for emergencies, and last-minute things like changing an appointment or getting directions (if I don't have GPS). OTOH, I can think of very few reasons why I need to take a business call while driving. I give out the number only to very close friends, family, and critical people such as my doctor -- who knows the number is not to be given to the administrators.
In like manner, I only use instant messaging when there is a reason, such as wanting a private side channel while on a teleconference. Very few things are both urgent enough to interrup, and also short enough to convey in a text string rather than an email that allows paragraphs.
There are pieces of technology that I can design, but I don't use. OTOH, I'm finding that getting several home computers (plus things work-related for me) into a secure, reliable mode still takes more system administration experience than is fair to expect from a nonprofessional.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
May 15, 2007 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink