You might wonder why I chose to start this document with a picture of human evolution, in a paper that is going to speak of technology, per se.
In all its fact, you must wonder.
When you search images for ‘Digital Divide in India’ on Google this picture is among the top ten. Because I have already dropped the bomb-word for this issue; what exactly do we infer of the ‘Digital Divide’?
Is it the buffering that happens while watching a YouTube video? Is it the persistent word “reconnecting” that keeps popping up on our WhatsApp Video Call screens; or is it the inability to access some electronic material for its charging in Dollars, or maybe it could also mean staying up till midnight for the Data-pack to refill just when the clock strikes 12?
In the most lucid form, it is all of these taken together.
In a country like India, as soon as we hear the phrase mentioned above, we are often tempted to visualise stretches of lush green fields, romantically called the ‘country-side’ and a lot of touristy advertisements which showcase such places as a break from the monotony of your everyday digital indulgences. What we tend to portray them is different from what they might be wanting to put across to us, readers and viewers. These advertisements might just be another way of making us aware of the aesthetics of life in the country-side; nevertheless, what we infer of it is a lack of digital connections which would automatically keep us away from our gadgets.
The concept of space and physical boundaries is important as they align with our social boundaries, too. The point is not just the space that you access your gadgets from, the amount that you could you spend for their access, or the time that you access them in; it indeed is all of them and in some conditions all of these at once!
Carrying forward from our newsletter of where we discussed how persuading social media had become, I thought it was a good idea to discuss the gaps that persist and maybe increase with the ways that this persuasion unravels itself. Social media as one of the many aspects that fall under the larger bracket of Technology deliverables. We must realise is while it breaks barriers of performance and puts forward opportunities to excel in performances; it might also be functional in consolidating and worsening existing power imbalances.
Coming back to the picture, I realise there is something about it that we fail to observe. Just Imagine, did all humans back then, undergoing evolution, have such body structures, with muscular arms and legs, a proper beard and a length appropriate hair?
Weren’t some of them also supposed to have, thinner than usual legs, no beards, longer hair, maybe bit more curvaceous bodies than otherwise depicted here?
Were all humans back then the same, or are we in the 21st century all the same?
No, we aren’t, not by figure, not by choices, not by demeanour or by anything. A lot of theorists would have an overwhelming reply to this, citing the Right to Equality under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, whereby all humans born in the Indian Territory are rendered same in the eyes of law, irrespective of caste, race, gender, sex and other such societal constructs. However, I beg to differ by quickly dropping in a quote by one of my very recent favourites.
“Seeing men as the human default is fundamental to the structure of human society. It’s an old habit and it runs deep- as deep as the theory of human evolution itself.” (Perez, C.)
Re-reading this quote would help you understand the very idea that this divide is not just the access, but also who tries to access it. Looking into deeper notions of it, one realises there is a lot more to it than just access, there is as much a motivation to access, the depiction of ‘what’ and ‘how’.
Look at the picture above, for example. It shows one hand holding the Wifi icon and three differently placed hands trying to reach out to that one hand! Statistics show how some people are devoid of the unhindered access to certain forms of the digital as compared to others. However, stereotyping this question of ‘the who’ into brackets of age, gender, space and other such constructs, should never be encouraged.
While many of you might want to argue that it is true that the aged, most of our mothers and a larger section of the population living in the rural areas are cut off from a lot many off age applications and technology deliverables that you and me, sitting in front of our devices have at our fingertips; there is also a major role that motivation plays.
This is where my third picture finds its way in! I strongly believe that interpretations of whatever is depicted, wherever, is an extremely subjective phenomenon. In this picture we see a woman holding a woman and another woman looking at it. One can see that the other woman is older. One famous interpretation could be how the older woman is trying to learn from the younger one. However, if one thinks otherwise, it could also be taken to representing the older woman being averse to technology and resisting knowledge because of lack of interest in using the recent technological deliverables. It might just be that she does not lack the competency to make use of these, but the use does not intrigue her as much as the woman sitting across her.
In 2019, India was tagged the second largest online market worldwide, just after China. The stone-laying by the Government of India was done with the launch of the Digital India initiative on July 2nd, 2015, which has led to an exponential increase in the penetration of the internet, irrespective of demographies resulting in over 700 million internet users across the country.
All these numbers only make it easier to conclude, that technology has become the lynchpin of the surviving society at present and arguably there are not many aspects in our lives where we could count technology out. Having said that, technology is something that has created as many rifts within society, as it has helped to bridge. Backing this point with data, the OECD Report of 2018 confirms that there are 327 fewer women than men worldwide, who have access to a smartphone and thereby mobile internet.
Take the case of India alone - data from November 2019 show that there has been a rise in the number of people accessing it in the rural areas than the urban areas, with 227 million users in the former compared to 205 million users in the latter. If you all read through a data portal Statista, on data about internet users, you would come across four exact areas that they work on - accessibility, demography and usage, mobile internet, and social media. In societies like ours where gender binaries are ways in which individuals are assigned meanings in society and incongruence results in stigmatization; gender-disaggregated data on internet usage is one of the many rifts that demands adequate research.
I genuinely feel, being into academics and indulging in a plethora of literature, the point of universality of the existence of such a divide is another misconception that people need to free themselves of. The other side of the same misconception is the erroneous belief that the masses have on the exponential benefits that these technological deliverables might bring into the real world.
The basic aim of discussing this matter in this issue of our Newsletter is just to make a lot of the reader-base aware that, while all of you might already be well versed in the idea of the digital divide; it is important to take a holistic approach to it. Everything cannot be in binary, of the ‘have’ or the ‘have-not’; rather thinking of this phrase as a continuum along which various people, experiencing a plethora of intimidating factors exists, is a much broader outlook.
Knowing ourselves and the human race, we are very aware of how granted we make things available to us in excess; thereby judicious use is one important aspect that we all must look into with immediate effect!
How do we do this?
Just switch off your Wi-fi when you are off to sleep. This does not just save up on your Gigabytes for a month it is favourable too on the pocket for the upcoming month.
So, yes, never too late to begin charity at home; isn’t that so?
If you’re still here:
Today we finish a month of Hit and Miss, with two successful issues. While I thought this would be totally experimental and judged myself at every word I wrote, I guess I am overwhelmed by the responses of all you kind people.
I am extremely grateful to Anchita who co-curated this essay. She is one talented woman and I genuinely hope this essay was worth your time. When I read it, I learnt so much. And that is the best thing about Anchita, she teaches you something new every time she writes or talks about something.
One last thing, I would genuinely, really, wholeheartedly appreciate if you could share this with people. My self-doubt disappears every time I receive a message from people who’ve read it, every time someone uploads a story about Hit and Miss. Please do that. It means so much, and makes me think that my words and time are not hopeless afterall. I would love for you to continue doing this. In little ways, you are motivating me to work more and become a better person. Thank you, really.
One more thing - I am planning to keep the next issue very light on the mind and heart. Something personal, my thoughts on something less intense. If you have any suggestion, do drop them on my Instagram handle @_madampanda__.
Further Reading: