A few things happened in the past few days that surprised
me. First, was hearing that in Detroit,
just 45 miles from the University of Michigan campus where I work, 40% of the
population do not have access to the Internet[1]. For the past 15+ years, I’ve been focused on
the digital divide in developing countries, places like sub-Sahara Africa. Now it is an issue in my backyard. How can that be? The age, class, and
community differences for US Internet access have narrowed over the past 15 years.[2] Is Detroit an American anomaly?
Second, at a conference on University of Michigan and
Detroit programs, an anthropologist cited that Detroit has one of the largest populations
of unbanked citizens in the US, 20%, nearly twice the national average of 11%. That’s citizens without a checking or savings
account[3]. It’s a cash culture; credit and ATM cards are
a foreign currency.
The third surprise came from the presentations at the
conference. Surveys and solutions were
all touting digital delivery. “Didn’t
that risk losing the voice and participation of the population they most
wanted,” I asked? The “best” answer I
heard, “we should distribute more phones!”
One of the professors went so far as to tell us how the computer science
teams always start with repeated meetings with stakeholders asking them what
they wanted. “Technology came later,” he
said.
What I came away with was a sense that the gap was a mindset
gap. We really don’t get the local context. If your frame of reference is that technology
is what gets applied, that it’s the way you
do things, have we really heard our audience?
For a population that is not connected, does not use banks or credit cards,
I’d like to hear more about the non-technical approaches—at least until the
digital divide problems are solved, and that means solving the cost and value
barriers, before we suggest the next best app or web site. Perhaps we can learn from the successes and
failures in sub-Sahara Africa. Who would
have thought?
[1] Jim
Kerstetter, “A Digital Divide in Detroit,” The
New York Times, May 23, 2016, here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/technology/a-digital-divide-in-detroit.html
and the companion article by Cecilia
Kang, “Unemployed Detroit Residents Are Trapped by a Digital Divide,” The New York Times, May 22, 2016, here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/technology/unemployed-detroit-residents-are-trapped-by-a-digital-divide.html
. The latter cites the 2013 US Census Bureau
data for the figure.
[2]
The Pew Research Center Report, “Americans’ Internet Access: 2000-2015,” June
26, 2015, states “For other groups, such as older adults, those with less
educational attainment, and those living in lower-income households, adoption
has historically been lower but rising steadily, especially in recent years. At
the same time, digital gaps still persist.” Yet the racial gap is less than
10%, with 84% of all American adults using the Internet. Here: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/06/26/americans-internet-access-2000-2015/
[3] This
report supports the anthropologist's claim: Kasey Wiedrich, “New Data Reveals High
Unbanked, Underbanked Rates in Localities across America,” CFED, December 3,
2015. Here: http://cfed.org/blog/inclusiveeconomy/new_data_reveals_high_unbanked_underbanked_rates_in_localities_across_america/
"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."
