bridging the digital divide

[kirby urner]

In thinking about our Multnomah County library's project, to catalyze
bridging the digital divide, one needs to think chronologically, not just
contemporaneously.

By that I mean:  lets remember that no one is born already knowing how
to read and write, or to speak a language, minus some years of training.

Yes some skills come more quickly to some than others, and in varying
degrees to each one of us, according to our gifts and opportunities, and
pretty soon we begin to differentiate like flowers or snowflakes into what
we're each individually best at doing.  We're not clones of one another.
We're diverse, and biologically speaking that has proved a best strategy.

So in that sense, bridging such a thing as a "digital divide" should not
be cast as one of those problems we just solve once and for all and
walk away from. 

Every day, legions of humans join the human "race" (I always think of
horse or car races when I hear that word -- yet trying to go fast,
i.e. "rushing" may be a poor strategy in many walks of life, including
business).  These legions need to be cued and clued as to what's
going on, and what skill sets will serve one well (learning how to find
and use the light switch or power on switch [1] -- that will come in
handy, especially when you're tall enough to reach them).

Now lets look at two natural bridges across which the digital divide
might be bridged:

(Chronological):  there's a natural affinity between the two far ends
of the age spectrum.  A fresh startup generation meets the senior
generation.  In the middle one has parent guardians and family
units a generation closer together, with the guardians out foraging
like birds, bringing stuff from Costco and WinCo home to the
nest and its growing chicks. 

The wish to share skills across the generations is pretty strong
and many of us grow up with memories of lessons learned from
a grandparent.  This wish to share transcends so-called "blood
lines" (a misnomer) and may be creatively enhanced and
channeled through social media, which latter also enable in-person
meetups (a synchronous modality).

(Contemporaneous):  there's a natural affinity between so-called
"charities" (another misnomer), sometimes "causes", and the open
source idealist communities, a natural match of "biggest world
problems" with "most affordable yet puzzling technologies".  In
Portland I remember when Free Geek (freegeek.org) sought to
organize a Penguin Day (the penguin being the mascot of Linux
and to some extent an avatar for the free / libre software movement),
which was all about geekdom mingling with the staffs and heads
of nonprofits, so-called NGOs, though just as often GOs i.e. Metro,
Multnomah County, state and local government.

In both cases, we're looking at "math skills" of a particular kind.

Tackling world problems requires analysis and learning to communicate
and share models, whereas a young person is big into self-constructing
a world view (with a self image to go with it). 

Seniors want to help these new selves with their constructions, whereas
in the contemporaneous world of business and politics, the private
sector gets behind "horses" (charities) and has them race to produce
results in the public arena, a way of making their "owners" (funders)
look good (a form of advertising, building good will, a public
following).

Those seeking to catalyze "bridging the digital divide" would do well
to catalyze interactions across both of these high voltage "gaps".

Be sparks.  Help these circuits close.

Kirby


[1]  we usually assum the power on and off device are the same
device, but lets remember some light circuits allow the same lights
to be controlled from more than one panel.  It would be feasible,
though perhaps awkward and inconvenient (part of some game or
puzzle?) to have an "off control" and "on control" be entirely different.
And indeed, on a computer a physical button is often for "on" whereas
there a lexical shutdown command one may type to initialize the
shutdown process, ending in full power down.  So there's a good
example of what I'd call asymmetric startup and shutdown controls.
The birth process is not the same as the death process, either.