This will be our final lesson summary, so we hope you all enjoy reading it!
This week's lesson summary is all about Digital Divides, and how digitalisation is not the same in all corners of the world. Many people assume that digital models that work in the US and Europe can easily be applied to China, Latin America, and in other places in the developing world. This however, is not true, as many countries do not have the same digital capacity as others, which we will be looking at in a moment.
Digital Native Generation refers to people who were born in an era where they have access to digital technology, and it is widely used. These are people who were born in the mid 1990's and after, when the internet and other digital phenomenon's were just beginning to become an essential part of life. There are age barriers with technology as, people over a certain age are likely to find it difficult to use these technologies, as they were not born in this era.
Hemisphere Divides refers to a global divide which is often represented as Northern Hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere. Industrialised Nations have access to extremely efficient internet services and plentiful human resources. This means that companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, or Sony are assumed as reference-points in the media and at professional events all over the world.
Countries are faced with two different options:
a) Financing the instillation of platforms designed in the North
b) Investing according to their concrete needs, expectations and potentialities.
An example of a developing country which has faced the digital revolution is India. In 1998 0.1% of people had access to the internet in India, whereas now there are approximately 4.2% of internet users in India.
There are other divides in the digital world, including racial divides and generation divides, however there are ways that all of these divides may be closed. Closing the divide may include funding community digital inclusions, and encouraging understanding and training in terms of applications and technology. The outcomes of this may be digital literacy, digital advocacy in terms of embracing the age, and computer access for many different people.