digital divide

as i have often said here in my blog, i have never really considered myself an overly technical person. however in saying that i am not so completely unaware that my circumstances find me lucky enough to have a cellphone, laptop, television etc - in stark contrast to many others in the world. in my flat of 6 people, all of us have cellphones (a couple even have more than one, on different networks), our own laptops and 4 of 6 have televisions. the boys have their ps3's etc, we all have stereos, dvd capability, we have sky digital, digital cameras... yet there are people who have none of these. i use my laptop to watch television shows, listen to music, download stuff, type assignments and surf the net... and the occassional procrastination on bebo or perez hilton. so it would be fair to say that technology infiltrates my life on a regular basis, yet i certainly consider myself a slave to technology. i have obviously gained this perception from somewhere; apparently in my little corner of the world this kind of usage is the norm.

even in countries that aren't 3rd world - developing countries - infrastructure is so far behind us that things like the internet definitely do not exist in the way we have it here. i'm from invercargill and all the supermarkets are only just getting those self-scan machines - exciting times! last time i was in christchurch (beginning of 2007) the pak n save near the backpackers my friends and i stayed at already had them. so that's just one example i can think of when it comes to the differences between highly urbanised areas, and those areas that aren't as metro.

however, there are countries that are miles ahead of us as well. i had never thought of those less fortunate of myself in terms of their access to technology - i always thought there were more important things to be concerned about. however, the fact is that technology is now a part of life for many of us and does indeed allow many opportunities to learn and develop - the amount of information available to myself in comparision to other people is huge, and the potential educational opportunities those people are being deprived of is just another example of social inequality. obviously things like proper nutrition and erradicating disease is deservedly put on a higher plateau than providing people with access to technology, but ideally everybody would have the same access/opportunities as each other.