Transcript The Digital Divide and the Transformation of Work Crystal Soo What is the Digital Divide? Economic and social inequality between groups of persons Information.

The Digital Divide and the
Transformation of Work
Crystal Soo
What is the Digital Divide?
Economic and social inequality between groups of persons
Information and communication technology gap
More than access issue
• Information utilization and information receptiveness
An economic and civil rights issue
Overcoming the divide:
• Infrastructure
• Social media
Cybertech & Disabled Persons
36% of Britain’s disabled can access internet
Bulk of disabled in public service
• ie: IT systems, websites
Unite technological capacity growth and disabled
• Build accessibility in early stages
Disability Discrimination Act
• Beginning to raise issues in public sector regarding accessibility
Cybertech & Racism
Overt racism seems marginal in physical society
Racism exists in institutions, laws, and cultural assumptions
On the internet:
a) Group polarization
• Racist opinions become more hardcore
b) Getting noticed
• Loud and inflammatory opinions
Anonymity
Cybertech & Gender Issues
Cybertechnology  educate, inform, empower
Gender gap  disempowerment
Low and middle-income countries
• Women 21% less likely than men to own cellphone
• Women 37% less likely than men to own cellphone in South Asia
UN findings:
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Vote on priorities via paper, online, mobile
Paper: 50-50 split
Online: 52-48 split
Mobile: 25-75 split
Cybertech & Work
Nature of work
 Communication
• Conference calls and email chains
 Challenging to get to know partners
 Collaboration technology
• New way to work dynamic and global
Quality of work life
 Evolve technology to make new way of working more human
 Mobile work-from-home
 Closer collaboration
Surveillance & Social and Ethical Issues
Privacy advocates worried over fine-grained, digital monitoring
• Lee Tien, senior staff lawyer:
• Companies have few legal obligations aside from informing
• Questions effectiveness of such monitoring
Ben Waber, Sociometric Solutions
• Privacy policy should deal with consumer issues AND workplace
• Workers can opt in to have aggregate statistics collected
Skeptics fear return of scientific management
Surveillance can motivate sales
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/sep/24/disability.thinktanks
http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-racism-2012-5
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/03/21/how-technologywidens-the-gender-gap/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/unify/2013/12/10/how-technology-haschanged-workplace-communication/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/technology/workplace-surveillancesees-good-and-bad.html?_r=0