Week 3: Is Technology Dividing Cultures?

There is seemingly an infinite amount of ways to categorize information. In most cases, classification is biased towards an individual or a cultural preference, giving priority to the social norms of each respective community. However, in our digitized world, cultures lacking modern technology are deemed incapable of making these classification decisions, and this notion incorrectly contributes to the ever-growing digital divide. This idea unethically promotes a division between cultures who have access to new technology, and those who don’t. We must understand that in some cases, modern, digital technologies aren’t relevant or useful in certain culture’s practices.

Modern technology is thought to provide a more efficient and powerful way to accomplish tasks, but as we investigate cultures and their practices, we find that new digital and technological advances aren’t always the most practical. Last Winter, I took a class taught by Professor Ramesh Srinivasan in the Information Studies Department. We thoroughly discussed the concept of the digital divide and how cultural appropriation in regards to promoting new technologies must be a slow and adaptive process, as different  communities stress different needs. One article in particular struck me, as it fought the urge to close the gap the digital divide is apparently creating. A sociotechnical experiment took place in India in the early 2000s that documented the results of a technology influx: several computers were setup in a rural farming village in Southern India with the expectation for residents to become educated on the various modern technologies in hopes of bringing the community up to speed on the digital age. Instead of appropriating the new technology into their lives for the benefit of their community and economic infrastructure, the children were seen playing video games and creating an unnecessarily competitive environment that took away from their studies and daily chores. This agricultural village had no apparent need for the technology, nor did they understand how it could provide a benefit to their community, as they were very comfortable in their way of doing things.

i-slate

What is important to note, is that the individuals who provided the technology were only present for the setup and removal of the devices, and didn’t make themselves available to facilitate the usage of the computers. This is ethical in terms of cultural appropriation standards, as it allowed the community to learn for themselves how to use the devices, as exemplified in the success of the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal. However, introducing such a foreign object into the community requires more mentoring and technical assistance than there was provided. With the assistance from computer experts, this community could’ve benefitted from learning how to track weather patterns and the prices of goods to help their agricultural economy improve. There is a balance between introducing and enforcing knowledge on other cultures, and with the abundance of new technologies, we must be careful in the ways in which these devices are presented in order to maintain the unique practices and the integrity of cultures around the world.