No Wi-Fi, No Safety Net: The Life-or-Death Cost of the Digital Divide
Technology can save lives in so many ways that has become more than a luxury.
When people talk about digital equity, a lot of them are talking about equality.
And those are not the same.
The easiest way to explain the difference is with a buffet.
Put a two-year-old and a seventeen-year-old at the same buffet table and give them the same amount of food. That’s equality.
But equity means they both get to eat until they are full.
A two-year-old and a 17-year-old eating, showing how different needs require different support.
The same thing applies to technology. People don’t start from the same place.
You can give two people the same laptop and still give them very different levels of access.
One person may have reliable broadband, a quiet place to work, training, and someone they can call when something goes wrong.
The other may have a laptop but spend weeks fighting with an internet company just to get their service working.
That happens more often than people realize.
Families spent hours, days, and sometimes weeks trying to get their bills corrected, services repaired or accounts turned back on.
One person was charged a $2,000 bill after being told their bill would be $50.
Another had been paying religiously for two years while their internet had not worked for six months.
So when someone says, “They have internet access,” the question is: What does that actually mean?
If the service doesn’t work, that is not access.
And the consequences can be serious.
If someone cannot reliably get online, working becomes challenging. They can lose their income. That can affect their ability to pay for their rent.
A Poor internet connection negatively impacts a household’s income.
Healthcare is another example.
In the United States, some people can wait months for an in-person appointment with a medical provider. With a reliable internet connection, that same patient can see the provider online and get care much sooner.
Without the internet, they may have no other choice but to keep waiting.
That is why broadband is not just a luxury. It is a day-to-day need.
But connectivity is only part of the problem.
People need what I think of as full-cycle access.
They need somewhere to buy a computer. They need to be able to afford it. They need training on how to use it. And they need support when something breaks.
We’ve gotten too comfortable assuming that people know how to use technology. They don’t. Even you, dear reader, do not know how to use all of the fancy features on the phone your are currently using. Imagine how much more difficult even this small task could be.
Knowing how to use a smartphone doesn’t mean you are an expert using a laptop professionally. Knowing how to open an app doesn’t mean you know how to use the systems you will find at work.
That knowledge needs to be taught in training.
Delivering a laptop to a family at their home.
There is another part of access that is harder to see: fear.
During my visits to help families access resources, I worked with a refugee family from East Africa. Their younger children would freeze in fear when questions started and a laptop came out.
The reason became clear later.
In the past, people had come to their home to ask detailed questions about the traumatic experiences they went through.
The children began associating laptops and technology with those experiences.
That is an access barrier, too.
Equity means understanding where people are starting from. Not everyone starts with the same circumstances, and giving everyone the same thing doesn’t give them the same opportunity.
Look at where people are starting from.
Ask what is getting in their way.
Spend enough time with them to find out what the real barriers are.