Freedom, sweet freedom!
Between the press of research reports and oral examinations for other subjects, I’ve finally found time to contribute to my much neglected Social Psychology blog.
And not a day too soon, as like an Atheist on his death bed eager to convert to Catholicism “just in case”, the end looms all too large in my caffeine hazed vision. Of the unit that is… so far as I know, I’m not going to die just yet.
But enough talk of death, there’s essay to be had!
The topic I have chosen is one of interest to me; The Digital Divide.
For those who don’t know, the Digital Divide refers to the relative prevalence of computer usage and technical competency with software in the first world compared to the third world, which accounts for a dismally small percentage of internet and computer users.
Why is this at all important to Social Psychology?
Because the machines are going to rise up against us and wipe our first world brothers from the earth, enslaving the third world to work in enormous origami farms (because as we know, all robots love origami but lack the neural dexterity to actually do it).
I’m kidding.
The real reason is because computers are changing the way we in the first world socialise, the way we communicate and even the way we think. If we leave the third world behind on this one, what chance do we stand of bridging the social and economic gaps between us that already exist?
Let me explain. In the Digital Divide, first world societies are becoming more and more reliant on comprehension and technical competency with computers, we need it to work, we need it to interface with our friends, we need it to keep up with current trends and world events.
Take someone from the third world and put them into this situation, with no training with computers, no comprehension of how to use Microsoft’s already mystifying software and how will they adapt to a culture where they are already outsiders.
Its entirely plausible that the Digital Divide could discourage immigration into the first world, increase racial tensions and further isolate migrant ethnic groups from the mainstream first world.
And we haven’t even started on what it could do to the class system.
Enough of this groundless conjecture, what do other people think on this topic?
Will the Digital Divide end the days of third to first world migration?
