The Digital divide in disablity care
What is the digital divide and how is it relevant in disability
care?
I
So let’s start by breaking down what is the digital divide, it
is basically those who have access to stable, internet that isn’t blocked by the
state or other bad faith actors. However
we do see that people need to be able to afford to pay for the service and this
can be another issue if you can’t access the internet then how do you, do most
things that people do online these days?
Like job searching, like watching streaming services or on-demand
TV, we see that this is distinctly different from those who for ethical, health,
or religious reasons have chosen to go screen-free
In saying that we see that in being screen-free in their
home they might have access to screens through other places like their work or
public libraries, They understand what is a conscious decision and they can
work around it.
However, what I am talking about is those who don’t have a choice
in the matter because they can’t afford the internet so can’t shop online or
can’t access accurate information for work or study purposes and this then
becomes an issue due to not being able to price compare or even look at online second-hand
stores I know that I am a member of several consumer groups and the premise is quite
simple in that we ask someone do they have what we need lying around and instead
of paying for it now we exchange services or other good’s. Saving money and the environment at the same
time.
But if you don’t have access to the internet you can’t do
things like this to keep the cost down. It also does limit economic options in
that most jobs are found online and you are forced to apply online as well. So
in forcing people to apply online we see that most Human resources departments
can use automatic tracking software to get the best applicants and this
can become an issue because if someone has a resume gap they might be rejected
by the tracking software and then we see that the person that gets hired might
not be the best person for the job but they are missing what has been coined a
hard to reach demographic but is it a hard to reach demographic or is it that
your organization hasn’t thought through its inclusion strategy and we see that
people recoil at that word but when used in proper context we see that it’s a great
strategy to have and what inclusion means and how it is used to manipulate is a
whole other topic as well.
I will lightly touch on this issue as what I am saying by inclusion
is that including people with disabilities does take major effort so
in the online space it might be that the person needs a screen reader, in a physical
setting it might be to have a lift and accessible toilets and to not charge for
these facilities.
It’s also including and realizing that disability isn’t just
physical we see that this is a major issue that inclusion has to include disabilities
and these disabilities aren’t just including physical disabilities but looking
at disabilities that are not visible, so the technical term is a psychosocial disability.
This is an umbrella term for conditions like
ADHD, Autism, OCD, and Traumatic brain injuries where the person doesn’t “look,”
disabled but when you start to see some
of their negative behavior we see that this becomes a major issue as well so
in saying that we see that it can be an issue as well. , some conditions are helped by spending time
on the internet and it is used for self-soothing but in others it can make
things worse due to the overstimulation that the internet provides.
This overstimulation isn’t overt at times but we do see it a
lot and it can negatively change the brain's chemistry so people need to
be aware of the time that they are spending on the internet.
So is it time-wasting or is it productive and when I say
productive I do mean some relaxing time in there as well as we now know that some
sights like Facebook and YouTube are designed to be addictive and this is how
they make money and it is a tool and many people with a disability use the internet
to become blogger or YouTubers and start running there own business as well.
This is exactly what I am trying to say as well. But it needs to be balanced
and this is a whole other issue as well and I have written about this in another
post. I will put the link to it down
below.
https://annieswonderlanda.blogspot.com/2022/02/disability-and-internet.html
Comments
Post a Comment