Andrea Di MaioA while ago I wrote about the struggle that two members of my family had by owning iPhone 3G and suffering from upgrading to iOS 4.1.For my daughter, I downgraded the phone. For my wife I kept it on 4.1, then moved to 4.2, which made her iPhone almost impossible to use, as battery would drain in a matter of hours, even with very modest use.
Downgrading her phone to iOS 3.1.3 was far more challenging than for my daughter, as my wife has iTunes running on Windows 7, and some of the online advice about how to kick the iPhone out of recovery mode at the end of the downgrade is not entirely accurate, which made her desktop inoperable. After hours (and half a night) of recovery, I found an easier way to downgrade her iPhone, and I hope it is now back to normal.
Another interesting episode that a friend of mine told me about today, is that of a brand new luxury SUV from a well know German brand, with all sorts of thrills and frills, which stopped functioning after a few days: several alarms popped up on the cockpit, indicating that the automatic gear, the anti-skid system, the start-stop system and more were faulty. The car dealer kept his car for about five weeks, including a transfer to the Italian importer’s headquarter, to try and fix the problem. The result is that one day after he got his car back, the problem happened again.
The examples above are just two examples of the dozens I hear about every week, where consumers as well as professionals struggle with fixing technology problems. While consumer electronics are everywhere and consumers are increasingly exposed to technology, the complexity of technology applications, and the increasingly fast pace of change, puts both consumers and many of those who serve them (the car dealer, in my example) at a disadvantage.
If I look at the technology complexity of my home, and I compare the way it was just three or four years ago, it seems to me that it is getting worse. I am somewhat lucky to have some understanding of technology to find my way through, but should I be in my friend’s situation with my car, I would be lost too.
So, while governments look at more technology and broader band to re-ignite the economy and bridge economic and societal gaps, they do not seem to reflect on how people will be able to deal with problems caused by technology.
The assumption is that each generation of technology is better than the previous one, and this is somewhat true: disks are better and fail less, connections are more stable and drop more seldom, and so forth. However the downside is an increase in complexity that remains above the average skills that people possess to deal with it. It is already a fact that, in spite of the growing and impressive quantity of functionality that finds room in consumer products, most people use only a fraction of that. Just think about your last TV set: how many buttons on the remote have you ever pressed, and for how many you do not even know what they are there for?
Spreading the wealth by subsidizing access to technology, by giving every child or every household a computer and a broadband access won’t shield us from the consequences of excessive complexity combined with inevitably imperfect technology.
What is not entirely clear to me is what policy-makers are doing to help us face this: improving consumer protection, providing better (or any) training to roles that are responsible for deploying technology in schools and households would be a good start.
Category: e-government Tags: digital divide, iPhone
6 responses so far ↓
1 Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva December 20, 2010 at 9:16 am
It is a myth indeed. If you check the trends in Eurostat you could also say that digital divide is getting wider and it is not just related with access to broadband http://www.ictconsequences.net/2010/12/16/no-ehealth-withou-einclusion-europe-eurostat-2010/
2 Tweets that mention Bridging the Digital Divide Is A Myth -- Topsy.com December 20, 2010 at 9:37 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by ehealthgr, Suvish Viswanathan, Bronwen_Kausch and others. Bronwen_Kausch said: An excellent point. Policy makers take note RT @AndreaDiMaio: Bridging the Digital Divide Is A Myth – http://bit.ly/h3wjBR [...]
3 Gadi Ben-Yehuda December 20, 2010 at 4:25 pm
I’m having a hard time following the logic here. Your family is bedeviled by problems with their iPhones, so the fact that 90 percent of people in NW Washington, DC, have broadband access and enjoy the digital services of the city through that access, while only 36 percent of residents of SE Washington, DC, have access is a myth?
Or is the myth that it’s a problem that only 36 percent of residents have broadband access, because all that Internet would just confuse them anyway?
Or is it a myth that municipal government should do something about the real problem that only 36 percent of residents. . . ?
4 Andrea Di Maio December 20, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Like I have a hard time following a logic that makes consumers’ and citizens’ lives increasingly depending on technology, without providing them with due protection or preparation.
It is very good to bring SE up to speed with NW Washington, but both sides may need a little bit of help to deal with technology complexity, especially when technology fails. Incidentally, I suspect that those living in SE Washington are also those who would be more vulnerable, should they deal with technology failures, right?
It is not an either or. But so far the focus has been primarily on providing more technology to bridge the gap, rather than making technology easier and safer.
5 The Irony of Trying to Bridge the Digital Divide December 21, 2010 at 5:18 am
[...] Andrea Di Maio is a vice president and distinguished analyst in Gartner Research, where he focuses on the public sector, with particular reference to e-government strategies, Web 2.0, the business value of IT, open-source software… Read Full Bio Coverage Areas: ← Bridging the Digital Divide Is A Myth [...]
6 Megan December 22, 2010 at 10:36 pm
Help me Obi Wan Kinobi, you’re my only hope.
Not a myth but rather a worthy goal that will never be achieved perfectly or completely. The digital divide is getting wider because the gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider. There are many ways to bridge that gap.