讀書果陣寫過好多文章，都係為左交功課同考試，而且果陣能力唔高，好多都寫到好表面，同埋用詞簡淺，早幾日比我係櫃底搵到，我決定打上黎分享下~~
第三篇都係來我讀ASSO果陣應用社會科學入面既<Science, Technology and Society>
題目係: Explain the concept of "digital divide". How does it exist among nations and within nations? What are the implications of the concept in terms of impacts of technology on society?
P.S.數碼差距係有個好好既議題，好合適咁放係香港社會入面，亦都可以放係開源呢個文化上
Nowadays, people contact and transport information over the world by internet. The internet reduces the distance between people which live in different places, but there are some people cannot join into the global village because of digital divide. Digital divide means the gap between people can or can not get information (Jorge, 2008, para. 1) who called ‘Haves’ and 'Have Nots' (Deidra Fryer, 2008, P 1). It caused by some reasons and also makes same impacts of technology on society.
Digital divide are caused by some reasons which include technology, education and politics. First, there are some poor states, like Ethiopia, have not enough money, people who live in poor states cannot buy computers or go to internet cafe, also they cannot improve their technologies with much money (Jorge, 2008, para. 4). Second, education would be a cause of digital divide. Since some states do not have progressive technology, people are difficult to get information or learn knowledge from other countries where are developed, then those people would lack of computer skills (para. 8) Also, language is a problem of education, people who do not know English are not easy to enjoy the internet as there are many websites and computer programs have written in English. Third, politics would lead to digital divide too. The government may block some websites because they do not want people judge policies. China is an example, the Chinese government would block some websites about sensitive issues(Vivien, 2002, para. 1), like Tibetan sovereignty debate. Overall, technology, education and politics are the causes of digital divide.
Digital divide would worsen the inequality income distribution and rise expenditure of the government. Internet is the most important media over the world as it can transport much and instantaneous information very fast, so computer skills are very important of working and trade, for example, companies would use e-mail to contact with other companies or white collar workers use computers to write reports, therefore, people who do not know the skills may not be employed or they only can get low salaries (Oxfam Hong Kong, para. 3.1). Since people only can earn loss money, they have not enough money to learn computer skills, and then they are difficult to improve the living standard. As people become poorer and poorer, the governments want to spend more money to assist those poor people, it would increase the government expenditure. Also, when there are increasing numbers of poor people, the government income would decrease because there are less people pay tax. Therefore, digital divide would affect financial of the government.
Digital divide would lead to problems on some people. First, it makes some people difficult to learn knowledge. There are much information and knowledge transport on internet, we can search knowledge very fast, and so people who cannot use internet need to a lot of time to do the research, like search books in libraries. Besides, digital divide may affects. ‘Haves' on education. As ‘Have Nots' cannot upload, ‘Haves' may difficult to search knowledge and information which about ‘Have Nots'. For example, if ‘Haves' search the word 'Amazon', they can find many about shopping or travel, but information about ethnic minority who live in Amazon is very few(Oxfam Hong Kong, para. 3.3). Second, 'Have Nots cannot enjoy some government services because many government services are used on internet. For instance, the government would allow people inquire about policies by E-mail, or there are some government places are booked on government website (para. 3.2). Since there are some people difficult to enjoy the internet, they cannot enjoy some services which included government services and education.
In conclusion, digital divide is caused by different of technologies, education and politics. It makes many bad impactions on financial and education, therefore governments should reduce the gap between ‘Haves' and 'Have Nots', for example, they may donate money or computers for those ‘Have Nots'.
Reference:
- Deidra Fryer, Mary J. Granger. 2008. Closing the Digital Divide: The Role of Community Based Non-Profit Organizations ABI/INFORM Global.
- Jorge Werthein. 2008. Educating for cyberspace: digital divide Americas Quarterly.
- Oxfam Hong Kong. 數碼差距. 瀏覽日期: 10-04-2009, from http://www.cyherschool.oxfam.org.hk/articles.php?id=61&page=3
- Vivien Pik-Kwan Chan. 2002. Beijing in hard drive to patrol Net. SCMP.
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