Falling through the net

DIGITAL DEVIDE: The Internet, some say, has ushered in the greatest period of wealth creation in history. They believe it has rocked the way we deliver and receive information and the way we do business.

And so, for them, it is easy to accept euphoric claims - like the local IT guru who said recently that the Internet is bringing about a brave new world replete with an "electronic agora" and "online democracy". For those who have not heard about it, "agora" means the open market place in ancient Greece where people argued about every topic under the sun.

Addressing a group if IT graduates the IT professional spoke about the "digital divide" and reiterated that we should invest in computer literacy and training in remote areas if we are to bridge the digital divide. The "digital divide" he refers is the gap between those able to benefit from digital technology and those who are not.

Though not all digital-divide experts agree to that precise wording, they do all agree with the notion that it refers, not merely to the matter of who has direct access to technology, but who is actually helped by technology.

The expert's thinking was on following broad lines: "The biggest barrier to use of internet is lack of skills. But not all skill-development requires the user to be literate. The next generation of the world wide web, referred to as Internet 2.0, emphasizes the need to go beyond text to give users a sensory experience of the web.

Some governments are exploring the use of cell phones, and applications like voice recognition technology or use of visual icons on various devices. Indeed, there are many new ways that the poor can be helped by new technologies even without them becoming literate."

Today, most of the learned economists do not agree with the thinking of this IT professional. When more than 80 percent of people in our country have never surfed the Web, naturally the gap between the information-haves and have-nots is widening.

Consequently two questions arise. How big is this "digital divide"? Why is it so hard to close? It took digital-divide researchers a whole decade to figure this out. Hundreds of studies drew the conclusion that the key factor in closing the "divide" is not access.

As the years passed, their attention moved away from who is connected to the question of who is served. Here's the upshot: upper-to-middle classes are given high-quality access to Internet because technologists are hard at work creating "solutions" designed just for them. Solutions for the poor were ignored.

So despite all the new technologies the digital divide is a wide one. Can we ever overcome it? The belief of the concept that the problems of the Third World can be solved merely by giving them access to the internet demonstrates a profound ignorance and lack of understanding of the problems faced by the poor.

The debate centres on prioritising need; how important is Internet access in an area without safe water or even a simple dispensary? While some health workers praise the satellite system that has brought them e-mail connections and cheap access to health information, others complain that Internet connections will not pay for aspirin or syringes.

For some schools, the Internet means expanding horizons but others worry that its glamour will undermine the education service; basic costs such as paying teachers may suffer as more and more resources are diverted to hook up to the information superhighway.

In short, what use is the internet to the rural people who still lack the basic needs? The argument goes on that the Internet will give them better information and access to new markets enabling them to maximize the price they receive for the products. What nonsense! They will probably still be forced to sell their products to the same mudalali who will only pay the lowest price in order to maximize his own profits.

Poverty can be vastly alleviated and exploitation reduced if local communities are empowered to move towards greater self-reliance and self-sufficiency; that is, if the poor could provide collectively for their own needs through their own resourcefulness and skills, employing a modest share of their country's resources.

The digital divide is really only a symptom rather than a cause of problems. So we shouldn't think that information and communication technologies are the solution to poverty. At the same time we should not neglect the fact that these technologies are available to a privileged few and denied to many.

No sane person will believe that internet will be a quick-fix solution to poverty, but ensuring that underserved individuals and communities can access education and tools to improve the quality of their lives certainly appears to be a critical piece of the answer.

Gandhi put it very clearly when he said: "Not mass production, but production by the masses." To think that a computer connected to the Internet can solve the problems of the poor is naivet‚ in the extreme.