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MISTICA: Fwd: [GKD] Why aren't more people online?

From: D. Williams ([email protected])
Date: Thu Jul 26 2001 - 20:49:22 AST

>----- Original Message -----
>From: D. Williams <[email protected]>
>To: <[email protected]>
>Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 9:33 AM
>Subject: Re: [GKD] Why aren't more people online?
>
>
> > I recently read the draft of a paper by Michel Menou "IsICTometrics*:
Toward
> > an alternative vision and process"
> > to be presented at RICYT & Observat�rio das Ci�ncias e das Tecnologias
> > (OCT), Portugal, Seminar on Indicators of The Information Society and
> > Scientific Culture Lisbon, 25-27 June 2001
> > in which he proposes a methodology to examine the extent and the
effects of
> > ICT penetration. It would be an excellent thing if such an examination
were
> > to become possible.
> > It seems to me that, as well as the "digital divide", there is also a
> > "perception/comprehension divide" between those of us who are in effect
> > "connection boxes" joining ICT and the South in the South, and those
at the
> > other end of the "bridge" where ICT sets out from the North.
> > In a recent message John Lawrence wrote in reply to Michel Menou (July
> > 16th):
> > > What if we reverse your proposition.... what is the evidence of
> > > negative effects of the Internet....? where has access to Internet hurt
> > > net (plus-minus) development, of the individual, or the society?
> > This is frightening, particularly in the context of President Bush's
recent
> > statements that his major concern is the health of the US economy. "Not
> > doing harm" CANNOT be equated with "doing good", particularly where
> > resources are small with a hundred worthwhile claims for every cent.
> > In the June 2001 issue of Popular Science there is an article by Chris
> > O'Malley "Low-Tech Blues" in which he describes a good deal of wonderful
> > technology that really doesn't work properly. Some of this technology is
> > what Northern experts propose that the South should invest in.
> > Perhaps the most useful thing that mechanisms like this list could do
is to
> > identify technology solutions which work and which bring demonstrable
> > benefits (Frederick Noronha and his colleagues are doing this already as a
> > volunteer exercise) and stop insisting that universal access to
computers is
> > going to solve all the problems.
> > Do what the economists have at last conceded may be the sensible way
to go -
> > consult the poor and ask THEM to define their poverty.
> > Best wishes
> > Deirdre Williams

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