Another kind of digital divide

I drove by a Honeybaked Ham store today while running some errands. The line to get in was around the block, probably 100 people long. What the heck, I thought to myself? Then I realized: it’s the day before Thanksgiving, probably one of the busiest days of the year for them. My next immediate thought was: don’t these people know that they can just go online and have their food delivered to their door – no fuss, no muss, and no waiting in stinking long lines and wasting half their day? We ordered online last year for Christmas and it worked great. Then I realized: I am probably one of the few that even knows you can order your Honeybaked hams online.

I teach my students about the “digital divide” (see this post) and we define it as unequal access to technology. The term “access” not only refers to physical access to the technology but also to the ability to use the technology. Should this term also extend to simply not knowing a specific use of the technology is available? I’m sure that many of those that were in line are also online – this is Orange County after all. This can extend so much further: there are many uses of the Internet that I take for granted (maps and directions, weather reports, movie show times…) that others may not know exist or, if they do know, they have never been shown how to make it useful for them.

The concept of making use of technology for a specific reason has a term: “effective use”. One of the leading writers in the field of Community Informatics, Michael Gurstein, wrote on it a couple years back here. There are many who could make effective use of the Internet if someone just showed them how. Those of us who are working for a just society and a just world need realize that just giving physical access to technology and doing basic training are not enough. For use to implement effective use, we must give people the ability to understand how to apply it to their everyday lives. We are fast approaching a time that those who do not know how to make effective use will find themselves on the outside looking in – or standing in line.

Happy Thanksgiving!