Over
the last fifty years, the way people access information has changed
drastically. A lot of this change
began with the entrance of the Internet into our lives, providing a whole new
source of information. The
Internet also changed the way that people communicate with the ability to
email, instant message and even video chat from across the world. The introduction of the cell phone has
also significantly changed the way we communicate, from long distance phone
calls to sending SMS messages.
As
the article Digital Divide or Participation Gap? Will Mobile Affect it? by
Kevin Guidry describes, there does still seem to be a digital divide. This article describes that those who
are disadvantage, whether by financial or educational means are more likely not
to have home Internet access. This
is a big problem in today’s society.
Now, more and more educational facilities, high schools and colleges are
moving towards the trend of using technology in their teaching. One example of this is Webassign. Webassign is a website where a teacher
can assign homework and quizzes. Sometimes, high school teachers use Webassign for
their students’ homework.
What is a student without home web access supposed to do? They can go to
a library or a friend’s house to do their work but they are at a big
disadvantage compared to a student that has home internet access.
The
participation gap is the gap of technological knowledge between different
people. Someone who has used a
computer their whole life will be able to be more productive on the computer
than someone who has just been given a computer for the first time. This is more of a difficult problem to
deal with than the digital divide.
There is no certain way of how to try and go about closing the gap.
I
believe that as time goes on, the participation gap and the digital divide will
become greater. Technology is
involved in society more than ever and the amount to which it is, is becoming
greater. Newspapers, paper forms, notebooks,
are all being phased out as their digital counterparts are taking their
places. I also believe that text
messaging and tweeting has led to a new way of thinking in short, compact
thoughts. Someone who does not have access to text messaging may has a
different thought process than someone who does. Although the evidence leads to
the belief that the participation gap and the digital divide will become
greater, only time will tell.
