Wasting Time Is New Divide in Digital Era

New York Times ^ | May 29, 2012 | MATT RICHTEL

[reaganaut1]

...

As access to devices has spread, children in poorer families are spending considerably more time than children from more well-off families using their television and gadgets to watch shows and videos, play games and connect on social networking sites, studies show.

This growing time-wasting gap, policy makers and researchers say, is more a reflection of the ability of parents to monitor and limit how children use technology than of access to it.

“I’m not antitechnology at home, but it’s not a savior,” said Laura Robell, the principal at Elmhurst Community Prep, a public middle school in East Oakland, Calif., who has long doubted the value of putting a computer in every home without proper oversight.

“So often we have parents come up to us and say, ‘I have no idea how to monitor Facebook,’ ” she said.

The new divide is such a cause of concern for the Federal Communications Commission that it is considering a proposal to spend $200 million to create a digital literacy corps. This group of hundreds, even thousands, of trainers would fan out to schools and libraries to teach productive uses of computers for parents, students and job seekers.

Separately, the commission will help send digital literacy trainers this fall to organizations like the Boys and Girls Club, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Some of the financial support for this program, part of a broader initiative called Connect2Compete, comes from private companies like Best Buy and Microsoft.

These efforts complement a handful of private and state projects aimed at paying for digital trainers to teach everything from basic keyboard use and word processing to how to apply for jobs online or use filters to block children from seeing online pornography.

[reaganaut1]

The government shouldn't make broadband access an entitlement.

Smart children will spend more of their time on the Internet on educational activities than dull children. Technology is a multiplier, not an equalizer, and the same is true for schools.

[Uncle Ike]

If you watch any TV at all, you will be bombarded with commercials for digital devices, fondly showing young, well-dressed, attractive, people in work settings, using their ‘Smart-Whatever’ to do anything but the tasks these people are supposedly paid for..

If the “rich-poor dichotomy” that the author postulates really exists, the Digital Industry is working its collective a$$ off to close that gap...

[ProtectOurFreedom]

As access to devices has spread, children in poorer families are spending considerably more time than children from more well-off families using their television and gadgets to watch shows and videos, play games and connect on social networking sites, studies show.

Wait a sec, here! This inequality is patently unfair to rich kids. The well off should be getting reparations and demanding more boob tube time.

[cuban leaf]

—...digital literacy corps...—

I believe Obama calls it a digital literacy corpse.

[cuban leaf]

If you watch any TV at all, you will be bombarded with commercials for digital devices, fondly showing young, well-dressed, attractive, people in work settings, using their ‘Smart-Whatever’ to do anything but the tasks these people are supposedly paid for..

Reminds me of this:

[Steely Tom]

As recently as seven or eight years ago, we were hearing about a "digital divide" that had rich people able to improve themselves, get jobs, do jobs, get educated, on the internet, while poor people were left out of the internet revolution.

Then, after all kinds of programs to get affordable digital access available everywhere (one example that comes to mind is the incredible arrangement Comcast was forced to accept), we are now told that the new, redefined, "digital divide 2.0" is all about poor people spending too much time consuming digital junk food from the internet.

The politicians are desperate to take control of this new mode of freedom.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”As access to devices has spread, children in poorer families are spending considerably more time than children from more well-off families using their television and gadgets to watch shows and videos, play games and connect on social networking sites, studies show.
This growing time-wasting gap, policy makers and researchers say, is more a reflection of the ability of parents to monitor and limit how children use technology than of access to it. “

Who could have predicted this could happen?

Just like feel good ‘no money down’ affordable housing that led to them to foreclosure, who would have guessed?

How do they know this anyway?

[nascarnation]

Excellent post!

The Dems stopped worrying about the “digital divide” when they started moveon.org

[Steely Tom]

Oh yeah, notice how the New York Times sets itself up as the arbitor of what is "wasting time" on the internet.

The new divide is such a cause of concern for the Federal Communications Commission that it is considering a proposal to spend $200 million to create a digital literacy corps. This group of hundreds, even thousands, of trainers would fan out to schools and libraries to teach productive uses of computers for parents, students and job seekers.

Yeah, right. I can just imagine what kinds of "productive uses" the Obama FCC will be suggesting to the unwashed hoards who will find time to show up at schools and libraries.

[cymbeline]

Isn’t it about time we drop the word ‘digital’ since everything electronic is nowdays digital?

[Zeppo]

The new divide is such a cause of concern for the Federal Communications Commission that it is considering a proposal to spend $200 million to create a digital literacy corps.

And what is the legal authority for the FCC to do such a thing?

I have no problem with individual FCC commissioners and employees ponying up out of their own pockets to fund such a boondoggle, but why should the taxpayers be fleeced for yet another foolish federal giveaway?

[SunkenCiv]

No joke. :’) Thanks sickoflibs.

[GOPJ]

Liberal elites - like the folks at the New York Times - are soooooo concerned about 'divides' between their types and the great unwashed. This reads 'creepy'...

[UCANSEE2]

Isn’t it about time we drop the word ‘digital’ since everything electronic is nowdays digital?

Or just because most of the populace doesn't even know what the word 'digital' even means, nor could they tell the difference between an 'analog' and a 'digital' clock.