The Digital Divide

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6196/5187

The above article, written by Emily Hong, details a rather interesting situation that is taking place in San Francisco's Chinatown, although the situation is certainly not restricted to just that neighborhood. The issue of internet access is never one I have ever really considered, at least not for more than a moment or two. This may well be because I have had internet access for as long as it's been normal to have it. Shoot, I remember as a little kid, when I wanted to tell my grandma something, anything at all, I would just tell my mom and we'd get online and send an email. That easy. No hassle. It was just any other day. For this reason I had never really considered what it might be like to live in an area that did not have very good, or sometimes any, internet access at all. What multiplied the shock of this article was that Chinatown is a result of racial dividing from decades ago that is still being perpetuated over and over again. It's crazy that these people are living in conditions that prevent them from accessing a free, public service. The internet has become increasingly important in our everyday lives and for people to not have any way to access it is wrong in my opinion. What makes it worse is that this is not even really the fault of the people. The government gave them this little section of San Francisco decades ago and it is now far below living standards and near tenement conditions, with no way to have internet in place. Looking at research done by Pew Internet through 2015, they found that 97% of Asian Americans use the internet (http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/06/26/americans-internet-access-2000-2015/). That is astronomically higher than those residing in Chinatown. Why is this the case? Why does location determine your right to a public good. And, going off of that point, if locataion gets to determine your right to said public good, how come the government can place you in these areas and not even help out when living conditions become outdated. There just needs to be more done to make sure everyone can have access to the internet, especially with more and more of our daily lives being integrated with the digital world.