(Now when I say that, I don't mean disrespect to my professor, but as we all know, so often what we discuss in school seems hardly important to our daily lives. You know, college is supposed to be that place where you discuss concepts which are either beyond the basics and are "enlightening" or more "relevant" to what future we want to create for ourselves. But sometimes (for some people, frequently would be a better word), that doesn't happen. I'm glad about 75% of my coursework has actually been one or both of those (whether I understood the work at the time or not), and that it's only the little things I have to complain about.)
I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the terms "digital divide" and "net neutrality" so here's some information!The digital divide is the gap between people who have access to the internet and people who do not.
My professor asked a few questions of us which maybe you guys want to answer too:
Is technology neutral? (Interpret as you wish; I still don't understand the question.)
Does technology itself widen or narrow the gap between the rich and the poor?
Net Neutrality is the current standing of the federal government which does not enable the 4 ISPs (AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner) to basically take control of what content is available on the internet to users. The 4 ISPs want to get rid of this, and they are currently lobbying in Congress to do so.
For more on digital divide, try taking a look at wikipedia (lol), Bridge the Digital Divide (effort to discontinue this phenomenon), and this website of the US Dept of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration committee.
For more on net neutrality, here are links to:
wikipedia
http://www.opposingviews.com/questions/should-the-government-regulate-net-neutrality (OOH THIS LOOKS LIKE A GREAT WEBSITE!!)
http://www.savetheinternet.com/ (effort to maintain net neutrality)
Honestly one of your best posts yet.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts:
a) Technology is as neutral as the hand that uses it. A screwdriver can fix a toy or kill a man, all depends on the hand that grips it.
So you're basically bringing up a catch22 there. I would venture to say however that the question is a moot point b/c thus far only human technology has this sort of conundrum attached to it. Technology frequently has a dual use to it that frequently is only limited to the minds of their users, so technological neutrality as such is rather hard to define.
b) Net-neutrality: if the four ISPs in the US takeover, so what. The current model right now has been a huge success, should the US do it guarantee other countries won't follow suit and it'll only be a matter of time for those ISPs to gain ground.
i) Since the people that have made this technology their lives are still primarily in the younger demographic, rest assured they couldn't care less about lobbying congress in favor of net-neutrality, as they are too busy having fun still. However, once their precious facebook's get taken away, and everyone has to pay to log onto the internet for everything, watch and observe the cyber culture as we know it implode, and those people that lived through their gadgets and fb profiles will be out in the streets over it.
ii.) And i wouldn't think this is that much of a bad thing. If you really think about it, humanity has always been tied to technology, the internet is only the latest trend. Record players were similarly useless to human survival. Same goes for muskets, water pumps, etc etc.
can i ask who this is please? So curious.
ReplyDeletea) exactly what I thought!
ReplyDeleteb) i. great point, though a little "scary" to think that our internet will be imported. but hey! i happen to like facebook :P
ii. very good point as well!