Digital Smarts - Technology and Inequality

Technology is powerful and can do many things thought impossible not so long ago, but can it address inequality? “No” says Kentaro Toyama, an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan. After working in the field and attempting over the last decade to use digital devices to help the world’s poorest communities, Toyoma writes in USA Today that “what people get out of technology depends on what wealth, education, and social ties they already have. Technology is powerful, but its power depends on its human users.”

This is as true here in the United States as it is across the world, Toyoma maintains. Online courses, thought to help those without educational access, are most often taken by those who already have college degrees trying to get ahead and not by jobless high school dropouts. Crowdfunding can work, but the more star power you have the more donors you get. Furthermore, despite being in an era of digital innovation, the poverty rate in the US has increased, social mobility has stagnated and inequality has not improved.

It is an interesting viewpoint and runs counter to the claims of many tech enthusiasts. Toyoma’s solution? Politics, not technology, can shrink the social divide. If you are interested, Toyama has also written a book called “Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology (Public Affairs)”.