The new "digital divide"

[NoName]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/us...ef=todayspaper

Old problem: youths from the lower classes don't have enough "access" to computers and related technology
New problem: youths from the lower classes waste too much time on computers and related technology

In the 1990s, the term “digital divide” emerged to describe technology’s haves and have-nots. It inspired many efforts to get the latest computing tools into the hands of all Americans, particularly low-income families.

Those efforts have indeed shrunk the divide. But they have created an unintended side effect, one that is surprising and troubling to researchers and policy makers and that the government now wants to fix.

As access to devices has spread, children in poorer families are spending considerably more time than children from more well-off families using their television and gadgets to watch shows and videos, play games and connect on social networking sites, studies show.

This growing time-wasting gap, policy makers and researchers say, is more a reflection of the ability of parents to monitor and limit how children use technology than of access to it.

Maybe lack of parental attention or ability to control their kids' choices, as well as those choices themselves, was always a bigger problem than lack of access.

“I’m not antitechnology at home, but it’s not a savior,” said Laura Robell, the principal at Elmhurst Community Prep, a public middle school in East Oakland, Calif., who has long doubted the value of putting a computer in every home without proper oversight.

“So often we have parents come up to us and say, ‘I have no idea how to monitor Facebook,’ ” she said.

The new divide is such a cause of concern for the Federal Communications Commission that it is considering a proposal to spend $200 million to create a digital literacy corps. This group of hundreds, even thousands, of trainers would fan out to schools and libraries to teach productive uses of computers for parents, students and job seekers.

Separately, the commission will help send digital literacy trainers this fall to organizations like the Boys and Girls Club, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Some of the financial support for this program, part of a broader initiative called Connect2Compete, comes from private companies like Best Buy and Microsoft.

The government's work is never done.

Policy makers and researchers say the challenges are heightened for parents and children with fewer resources — the very people who were supposed to be helped by closing the digital divide.

The concerns are brought to life in families like those of Markiy Cook, a thoughtful 12-year-old in Oakland who loves technology.

At home, where money is tight, his family has two laptops, an Xbox 360 and a Nintendo Wii, and he has his own phone. He uses them mostly for Facebook, YouTube, texting and playing games.

He particularly likes playing them on the weekends.

“I stay up all night, until like 7 in the morning,” he said, laughing sheepishly. “It’s why I’m so tired on Monday.”

His grades are suffering. His grade-point average is barely over 1.0, putting him at the bottom of his class. He wants to be a biologist when he grows up, he said.

Markiy attends Elmhurst Community Prep, located in a rough area (the school has a tribute hanging in its hallway to a 15-year-old girl recently stabbed to death by the father of her baby). Thirty-five percent of the students, like Markiy, are black, and most of the rest are Hispanic.

[Pseudolus]

Old: Poor people can't get enough food to live.

New: Poor people are too fat.

[Pseudolus]

“So often we have parents come up to us and say, ‘I have no idea how to monitor Facebook,’ ” she said.

Really? How hard is it to say "No Facebook". Or, for those advanced parents who can handle a third word, "No damn Facebook". Done.

[Bicycle Repair Man]

I'm more amazed by the fact that families on tight budgets have two laptops, a 360 and a Wii.

If you have even one of those things, you don't get to consider yourself poor.

[Incredible Hulctuary]

Originally Posted by Bicycle Repair Man

I'm more amazed by the fact that families on tight budgets have two laptops, a 360 and a Wii.

If you have even one of those things, you don't get to consider yourself poor.

Nonsense.

You can buy a used laptop for under $100. And if you're poor, you might have received a donated laptop that otherwise would have gone to recycling.

A red-ringed Xbox 360 can be bought for $20-$30, or sometimes for free. Then another $10 for the fix-it kit, and you have a working console.

[Standtall]

Originally Posted by Incredible Hulctuary

Nonsense.

You can buy a used laptop for under $100. And if you're poor, you might have received a donated laptop that otherwise would have gone to recycling.

A red-ringed Xbox 360 can be bought for $20-$30, or sometimes for free. Then another $10 for the fix-it kit, and you have a working console.

What does the internet cost and XBOX connect service?

[Incredible Hulctuary]

Although the article repeatedly mentions children of poorer families, the study it quoted was about children of college-degreed parents vs. non-college-educated parents.

It's not surprising that parents without degrees would be less serious (on average) about their children's education than parents with degrees. The children of non-degreed parents with mid- to high income have the "double whammy" of their parents being able to afford the various electronic devices and also being less serious about education.

[Incredible Hulctuary]

Originally Posted by Standtall

What does the internet cost and XBOX connect service?

$20-$30/month will buy the lowest-tier broadband in many areas.

Xbox online connectivity is free for the Silver membership, $40-$60/year for Gold membership (depending on where you buy the membership card).

[Arthur Kade]

Originally Posted by Incredible Hulctuary

$20-$30/month will buy the lowest-tier broadband in many areas.

Xbox online connectivity is free for the Silver membership, $40-$60/year for Gold membership (depending on where you buy the membership card).

The fact that you can't see how completely idiotic your defense of these expenditures by a "poor" family demonstrates better than anything else how intellectually bankrupt the left in this country is.

An Xbox is a freakin' luxury. One does NOT get to have an Xbox and make even the slightest demand on my sympathy ... or my wallet.

[Dumbdumb]

There's no doubt that poor folks have all that stuff. If they made smart spending decisions, they wouldn't be poor. I grew up poor and in a poor region, yet there was always enough money for cigarettes for everyone.

I can kind of see the point of the article. I've got enough tv's that if I put a number to it I'd be embarrassed. Each kid has their own laptop, plus a netbook in the house. About a desktop per person. Ipad. Smartphones. Everyone one of Wii, xbox and ps3. Netflix. cable. and on and on.

Yet my kids are spending a lot less time in front of a screen. My eldest uses the computer for homework, and has no screen time otherwise - not TV, nothing. No interest. My youngest is spending less and less time gaming (maybe once a week now). Watches some youtube videos and skypes their friends a bit, but they mostly find other stuff to do now.

Perhaps that's what's changing - the more affluent you are, the more access young people have to alternative activities that eventually become more interesting than screen time.