Wednesday, 1 March 2017

Q.1.2 Facebook in a quest to mitigate the effects of infrastructure and the digital divide have launched Project Aquila. The problem of infrastructure is prevalent in Africa. Discuss the implication of all the different forms of the digital divide.

  ·     A Socio-economic divide: the ability to access the internet is part of the socio-economic divide related to developed and developing countries. As many countries have not yet developed proper structure or have a growing economy, they aren’t able to have devices that can connect them to the web.

  ·     A Divide in infrastructure: further as there is a slower growing rate of infrastructure in developing countries they will not be able to have up-to-date technology and structures to improve their range for the citizens to have access. South Africa is a good example with our electricity infrastructure that is so poor.

  ·     A Divide in content: English is a widely spoken language, one can now find almost all websites in English, it dominates the web. Problem comes with those that do not speak or use English, they are divided from the rest. Therefore there is a difference in content and understanding of from one person to another.

  ·     A Gender divide: especially in developing countries there is a gap between women and men when it comes to using the internet. As there are far less women that access the internet the women are missing out on job opportunities, support groups, economic info and they are not getting those educational benefits, this means women can’t be developed further to empower the country as a whole.

  ·     A Skills divide: digital literacy is important, not only does one need access to technology and the web, one needs the skills to work it and learn from it. There is an increase in the development of technology everyday, therefore there needs to be increase in the skills development rate.

  ·    The Universal access divide: there is also those that are physically disabled, which means they have a problem connecting and using technology. Although this is not a lack of skill. The availability is not big but the costs is huge.

Reference:
  • 2015. Digital Citizenship. Learning Unit 1. Module Manual. First edition. The Independent Institution of Education. Unpublished.  

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