Different Types of Digital Exclusion, and Their Impacts
Alternative Title One: Stranded; How Digital Exclusion Leaves People Behind
Alternative Title Two: Digital Exclusion Explained, And What You Can Do to Help
In a Nutshell
Digital Exclusion, or DE as we’re going to stick with here, is a problem for a large subsection of society. Most people, and I’m including you in this, aren’t DE. I’m supposing this on the basis that you’re reading this article right now. If you were DE you wouldnt be reading this, because you’d have more important things to do. These are the different types of DE, based on the experience of running a DE non-profit.
Device Poverty
This is the most important one, we have people who are Device Poor. Device Poverty means that you dont have the right tools to do the job. For example, like trying to draft an important email on your phone, or trying to design a document on a laptop with a tiny screen. Not having the right thing is bad, but having nothing is worse. At Solidaritech we try and provide the right thing for the job that the person is trying to do.
Data Poverty
We then have Data Poverty, which happens when people cant connect to the internet. People rely on internet access now, it’s the default setting, but often people without it get overlooked and can be some of the most silent digitally excluded people. They cannot complain.
Luckily Data Poverty happens less and less in a post-Covid world. That said, it’s still a considerable problem.
Skills Poverty
Much like Data Poverty, Skills Poverty is also a silent issue. Skills Poverty is also the one that is easiest to solve. But at the same time it feels to the people experiencing it that it’s almost insurmountable. Skills Poverty happens when the person has the right technology, but doesnt know how to use it. For the person experiencing Skills Poverty it often feels like they’re in an insurmountable bind.
So what is the solution?
Aside from a change of government and a rethink on wealth distribution, not much will change.
That said, we throw away 50m tonnes of e-waste in the UK every year, with most of it ending up in landfill in the third world. If you want to make a difference to device poverty you can donate your old tech to places that will gift it to DE people. Solidaritech would be a great place to start.
If you want to make a difference to data poverty you could consider leaving your wifi open at home. But a word of warning here, you might want to separate it from your home network and use a firewall to keep things safe.
For skills poverty things are a bit trickier, but you could always share your knowledge. Also, direct people to YouTube. If it can teach people to plumb a washing machine in it can teach someone Excel.
Notes:
Sorry if this doesn’t sound like my usual style. I’ve used Hemmingway to help me write this, so thanks to Sophie Badoux for the recommendation.
Sorry too about the three titles, I wasn’t sure which worked better so went with them all.
