Items tagged with digital divide
Families with limited income who are struggling to make ends meet may have reason to consider switching to Comcast. The company has rolled out a new $9.99 service tier that's available nationwide to citizens with at least one child receiving a free school lunch through the National School Lunch Program. The program isn't available to current Comcast subscribers (a significant oversight), but anyone who hasn't had Comcast service in 90 days and doesn't currently have an overdue balance with the company is able to apply. According to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the new service is intended to bridge the so-called digital divide between low-income families and the rest of the US. "We know that...
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British researchers say that access to technology, particularly devices that serve up the Internet, significantly improve a person's sense of well being. And if you are a woman, that goes double for you. Researchers drew their conclusions by analyzing data from 35,000 responses across 39 countries as part the World Values Survey (WVS). They also delved into 10,000 survey responses to the British Husehold Panel Study. "IT has a direct positive impact on life satisfaction, even when controlling for income and other factors known to be important in determining well-being," the researchers wrote in their 39-page report, Why IT makes you ‘happier' (PDF). What I love about this report is that...
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A few years ago, some people were concerned that a digital divide would separate those that have technology from those that don’t. That doesn’t appear to be the case today if you consider the number of homeless people who have computers and access to the Internet. Take Charles Pitts, for example. Mr. Pitts is 37 years old and lives in San Francisco. He has accounts on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, runs an Internet forum on Yahoo, reads online news, and emails friends regularly to keep in touch. The difference between Mr. Pitts and many other people who do these types of activities is that Mr. Pitts lives under a highway bridge. To keep his laptop charged, Mr. Pitts, who has been homeless for...
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