[Air-l] On-line behaviour

[Alexis Turner]

::Alexis Turner wrote:
::> This response is indicative of something I have been thinking about a lot
::> lately, which can basically be summed up by asking "WHY do we expect people
::> to use the web to the extent to which we, web professionals and scholars,
::> do?" and "WHY are we so dumbfounded when they don't?" In particular, I have
::> really begun to question my own horrified, but, ultimately, knee jerk
::> reaction to discovering that someone does not "engage," "participate," or
::> "produce" things on the web.  After all, I don't grow my own food, fix my
::> own car, or build my own calculators, so why should I expect others to learn
::> HTML, join a list, or defrag their own harddrive?  
::
::On Tue, 28 Nov 2006, John Veitch wrote:
::Hello Alexis
::
::I've very pleased to see you take this up.
::Yesterday I thought I'd found somebody who agreed with concerns I've been
::expressing for three years. I refer to "The Digital Divide and What to Do
::About it" by Eszter Hargittai and drawing on the work of Paul DiMaggio. Sadly
::this paper acknowledges the same problem that I've identified and then gets
::lost.
::(Thank you to the person who posted that link.)
::
::Researchers: Find some real live "ordinary people". Sit them in front of a
::terminal. Ask them to do what they always do on-line.  Watch and learn. I
::promise you the FIVE people will be enough to convince you that there is a
::serious problem and to give you research work that will keep you busy for
::about 10 years.
::
::Alexis; you might contract out your vehicle maintenance and your vegetable
::growing, but I hope you are not going to contract out your ability to think,
::your eating, and your ability to make friends.
::
::If people are going to be on-line they need to understand the value of and the
::importance of three simple things.
::1. Know how to keep your computer safe.
::2. Find and join groups of people who share your interests (Both on-line and
::off-line).
::3. Join and participate in a social network on-line.
::
::About 50% of people can't do number one, about 80% of people are not doing
::number two, and about 95% of people don't do number three.
::
::These three things are basic to on-line engagement. If you are going to learn
::to think more deeply, more widely, and to more purpose, you need to be
::connected to other people. The promise of the digital age is a fraud if you as
::an individual can't become part of it. That means you MUST be able to
::participate, not merely be a consumer. You have to develop your own brain. You
::can't buy one at the supermarket.
::
::Regards
::John

John, 
Regarding this line specifically:

::Alexis; you might contract out your vehicle maintenance and your vegetable  
::growing, but I hope you are not going to contract out your ability to think,
::your eating, and your ability to make friends.

No, of course I'm not.  But your argument suggests that going online is the only 
way I can acheive those three things (friends, thinking, and learning).  Human 
interaction, thought, and learning...engagement with the world in other 
words...was not invented with the advent of the internet.  It has been 
bolstered by it, certainly, but crying because people still turn to books and 
face to face seems to me a bit self-important (no offense to you is meant - I 
believe that most if not all of us have this natural reaction when people 
cannot "appreciate" our medium of choice, and it is my own similar reaction 
that has caused me to begin to question this response).

That's not to say that this divide doesn't exist - I worked tech support for 
many years and I certainly don't need to walk yet another person through how to 
eject a disk (that was a 40 minute phone call, in case you're curious) to 
appreciate that fact.  But it is precisely that experience that makes me realize 
that it is selfish to expect users to understand the fine points, and to  
engage in every aspect of the internet.  I am able to "use" a road perfectly 
well without understanding the subtleties of concrete, and I am quite thankful 
that there are others in the world who have devoted their attentions to the 
matter precisely BECAUSE their work frees me to use that road in happy 
ignorance, while giving me the time to devote MY attentions to other things 
like simply getting myself to the store in one piece.  There are simply too many 
things in the world for me to be actively engaged with all of them.  For some, 
that means the Internet falls off the list.

Now, I will say, there is one thing which I personally DO believe is crucial 
knowledge for users of the Internet - the ability to critically evaluate a 
source.  But that, I suspect, is a slightly different discussion, and certainly 
not unique to the web.
-Alexis