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A fascinating new report from the World Bank examines the impact that these digital technologies are having around the world. It’s a sobering reminder that the spread of technology often isn’t the panacea that many hope it will be.
Digital technologies have spread rapidly in much of the world. Digital dividends—that is, the broader development benefits from using these technologies—have lagged behind. In many instances, digital technologies have boosted growth, expanded opportunities, and improved service delivery. Yet their aggregate impact has fallen short and is unevenly distributed. For digital technologies to benefit everyone everywhere requires closing the remaining digital divide, especially in internet access. But greater digital adoption will not be enough. To get the most out of the digital revolution, countries also need to work on the “analog complements”—by strengthening regulations that ensure competition among businesses, by adapting workers’ skills to the demands of the new economy, and by ensuring that institutions are accountable.
The study did find positive aspects, which they call “digital dividends,” such as new economic growth and increased access to education. But it states that they are unevenly distributed, especially in developing nations. Poorer countries and individuals that lack access to the technologies will fall behind their peers, the report warns, and in some cases social inequalities could be exacerbated.
The increasing power of our technologies seems to justify the notion that if we really care about improving human well-being, we should focus on improving our technologies. That's where we are likely to find the biggest payoffs. The risks seem worth taking.
Why might this paradoxical-sounding claim be true? An evolved feature of human minds I call hedonic normalization aligns our subjective experiences to our objective circumstances. Humans aren't like desert-dwelling kangaroos whose inflexible psychologies are unlikely to adjust to transportation to the Arctic. Our flexible psychologies permit us to not only survive but to thrive in the Arctic. If you are born into an Arctic environment, you are likely to find it normal. Your normalization to the Arctic provides the backdrop against which you judge change.
Today 60 people from digital-rights groups in 28 countries or regions around the world signed a joint letter to Zuckerberg criticizing many of Internet.org’s practices on fairness, privacy, and security grounds. Among them are the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, Pakistan’s Digital Rights Foundation, and similar groups in Brazil, Indonesia, Uganda, and Cameroon.
“We have done some informal inquiries in the neighborhoods and found that people don’t realize they are only on Facebook—not on the Internet,” she says. Colombia’s government is channeling government information through Facebook’s app rather than making it available directly, she adds. “This was presented as a project meant to be an important universalization of the Internet,” she says. “But contrary to transparency principles, we have no information on the contract with Tigo, or how it came about. It’s only a few apps which they choose—and we don’t even know why or how.”
The new controversy comes after a recent furor in which more than a million people signed a petition asking India’s telecom authority to ban services that violate the open-access principle known as net neutrality.
“It is our belief that Facebook is improperly defining net neutrality in public statements and building a walled garden where the world’s poorest people can only access a limited set of insecure websites and services,” the letter published today says. “In its present conception, Internet.org thereby violates the principles of net neutrality, threatening freedom of expression, equality of opportunity, security, privacy and innovation.”
Technology is not the only thing keeping 4.3 billion people offline, though. For example, policies in India mandate that telecom companies provide coverage to poor as well as rich areas, but the government hasn’t enforced the rules, says Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, a think tank in Bangalore. He is also wary of Project Loon because of the way Google and other Western Internet companies have operated in developing countries in recent years. They have cut deals with telecoms in India and other countries to make it free to access their websites, disadvantaging local competitors. “Anyone coming with deep pockets and new technology I would welcome,” he says, but he adds that governments should fix up their patchy regulatory regimes first to ensure that everyone—not just Google and its partners—really does benefit.
originally posted by: schuyler
The Internet is not a failure because all 7 billion people don't have fiber optic high-speed access to it any more than telephones are a failure because not everyone has one or modern medicine is a failure because many millions don't have access to an on-demand MRI. The Internet is not designed to make the world a completely equitable place. Suggesting this is so is throwing out the amazing amount of change the Internet has wrought already. Ask yourself what would happen to the economies of the world without it. Basically, the world as we know it would no longer function. A whole lot of people would be less well-off than they are today.
The Internet is a medium of communication. It is not responsible for what is communicated nor is it responsible for the fact there is not an RJ-45 jack in every hovel. Faulting technology for not doing what you think it ought to do fails to recognize that it is you who actually directs what the technology does.
The World Bank article is specious and silly and misses its own point.
Once again, it is not the fault of the Internet that it is not ubiquitous. What is communicated via the Internet is under the control of humans. It sounds very much like you would wish the Internet to be used to further a political agenda.
All I have to do is read the comments on Youtube videos and online news articles to know that the internet is not making the world a better place...
originally posted by: Aeshma
a reply to: eisegesis
I think the Internet has vastly improved our world. It has unfortunately came with a stunning side effect of transparency. It revealed that the majority of society and man in general is much less evolved than we previously thought. Most men are daft, and the Internet never was meant to improve the lives of the meek.
originally posted by: Aeshma
a reply to: eisegesis
I'd expect Google to keep record of the things people search to better serve it's purpose of finding those things.... twist the service they provide to your hearts content.
originally posted by: Aeshma
a reply to: eisegesis
I find you disturbingly detached, and twisted in your perception of the world. The only thing the Internet has changed for the laymen is an increased level of detachment from the natural world. The Internet has vastly improved individuals access to knowledge and boosted many businesses productivity in a number of ways. As phage said the Internet is a tool, not everyone knows how to use it, or what to use it for.