Is our perspective skewed?
We've been having lots of discussions lately about how technology is taking over the world and whether this is a good thing (or not) and all the shades of grey in between. I was doing some reading for one of my other courses and came across some information that made me think that perhaps technology is not as dominant as we think.
According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in September 2007, only about 71% of the U.S. population used the Internet at least occasionally, and only 67% had Internet service in their homes. Moreover, only 47% of the U.S. population had a high-speed connection at home; 23% used dial-up, and the remaining 29% did not have Internet access (Horrigan & Smith, 2007). (Dillman, Smyth & Christian, 2009, p. 44).Granted this information is a little out-dated, and technology is growing at an incredible rate, but this passage reminded me that we are coming at the study of this phenomenon from a position of privilege. Middle-class, Canadian people who have the opportunity for higher education and the money to afford to buy access to many of these technologies. Very humbling.
Reference:
Dillman, D.A., Smyth, J. D. & Christian, L. M. (2009). Internet, mail, and mixed-mode surveys: The tailored design method. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 
Agreed that technology can be viewed as a privilege. The interesting thing is that all those people without internet access are probably no worse for the wear.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, perhaps our perspective is a bit skewed, but 67% of the population that already has internet access in their home is actually fairly substantial, and it 's constantly growing.
ReplyDeleteRemember how fast TVs came into people's homes? When you had to be privileged to have one TV, it's not unusual to have several TVs in the home.
Steph