Rich kids use the Internet to get ahead, and poor kids use it 'mindlessly'
[MARKETWATCH] “Compared to their poorer counterparts, young people from upper-class backgrounds (and their parents) are more likely to use the Internet for jobs, education, political and social engagement, health and newsgathering, and less for entertainment and recreation,” Putnam writes.
Interesting concept. I'm surprised no one's looked into it before.
“Affluent Americans use the Internet in ways that are mobility-enhancing, whereas poorer, less educated Americans typically use it in ways that are not.”
The same raw material is there for everyone. The internet doesn't care if you're rich or poor. If you're smart you can drink deep at the well. If you're a dumbass you'll never do more than splash around in the shallow end of the pool.
This is not to say the wealthier kids are using their iPhones to watch lectures on thermodynamics. They also send spend much of their Internet time sending off Snapchats, playing games and watching YouTube videos. But since social networks online tend to reflect social networks in real life, the wealthier kids have more people to draw on digitally to help advance their education and careers. (Parents in the top fifth of the economic hierarchy have 20% to 25% more friends than parents in the bottom fifth, and they know people in a far wider range of occupations, studies show.)
There's nothing to stop anyone from making those acquaintances on social media.
In fact, the social connections common to the wealthy may be even more important in an age where everyone can freely download all the world’s information, Putnam says. “Just because teens can get access to a technology that can connect them to anyone anywhere does not mean that they have equal access to knowledge and opportunity.”
But that's precisely what it means. Just because horses can get access to water does not mean that they'll drink.
A technology that reduces all the world’s information to ones and zeroes may exacerbate our division into haves and have-nots, Putnam says. “At least at this point in its evolution, the Internet seems more likely to widen the opportunity gap than to close it.”
A tool is a tool. Give me a chisel and a chunk of rock and I won't carve it into Perseus or Zeus or David. I don't have that talent. Give some kids the internet and they'll drink deep of human knowledge. Give it to others--maybe even most of them--and they'll email selfies.
Posted by: Fred 2015-06-01 |