Another Illustration of the NEW Digital Divide

Prince William reveals strict mobile phone rules in Apple TV interview - source: Daily Mail

The social inequality facing hyperconnection has become a problem within the problem.

A few years ago, we still believed that the least privileged suffered from a lack of access to the internet, which would keep them away from knowledge, connections, and opportunities.

Now, it is clear that it is the opposite:

Almost everyone has the means to access a smartphone –and therefore faces the risk of having their time, attention, and choices kidnapped by their devices.

The more educated and economically-empowered parents are, the more prone to limiting their children’s free access to the smartphones and social media.

On the opposite side of the social ladder, people are less empowered to establish such restrictions, while it is now established that uncontrolled access to devices is harmful to the health and well-being.

In the same way people from underprivileged backgrounds tend to ingest more calories and suffer from more obesity, they also spend more time in front of screens and are more sedentary.

Same happens with developed/developing countries. Calvin Odera of the Digital Health and Education Network Kenya [DHEN-K] has told me recently that the average age of first smartphone ownership in Kenya was 8 years old.

In developing countries, smartphones can still be associated with a higher social status.

Unless robust regulations are implemented, the digital divide will continue to deepen, not between those who are online and those who are not, but between those who use technology and those who are used by it.