The Effect of Poverty on the Use of Technology (Part 3)

The rise of technology and its integration into our everyday lives changes our way of life and thinking. It opens countless possibilities, as well as risks. This change may seem radical at first but when we get used to the rapid pace of the development of technology (this rapid pace need not be experienced first hand, via actual access, to be able to have an idea of how it works, just like with the concept of an “internet”), we learn to cope and live our lives with such idea at the back of our heads. Despite poverty, and possibly the lack or infrequency of access to the internet, this idea helps in my belief that once the infrastructure is furnished, people will quite easily learn to use technology for their own individual needs and wants.

It seems to me now that the effect of poverty on technology may be described in two different ways. And these two ways are on the opposite ends of the spectrum when placed side by side. Primarily because the first deals with people actually living in poverty while the second deals with people who see poverty as an opportunity.

The first is that poverty prevents technology from assimilating into remote areas because of lack of required knowledge of the majority of the inhabitants of such areas for the use of the technology involved to be able to access the internet. But today, as mentioned in our previous class, it seems even the disadvantaged knows, or at least has his or her own concept of an “internet”. This, at the very least, gives me the impression that even though poverty prevents actual access to be granted to the less privileged, it does not prevent the idea of such technology from getting to the remote places in the country.

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Rivera, Jan Michael A.
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