Ds initial proposal

DS initial proposal

In this day and age, digital media has become increasingly important in today’s society; however, I never could’ve imagined that despite the quickly rising importance of digital resources how few people in our country have access to them. In fact, as I learn more and more about the uses and importance of digital resources, the more and more I realize how difficult living in the modern day would be without these resources, which reveals the even harsher truth that many people do not have access to the these resources. Even though much of society and many businesses utilize the internet heavily, the internet is still a relatively expensive resource and because of this, digital resources have created a ‘digital divide’ which separates low income citizens from those with higher income. It goes beyond the things I’ve heard and seen in class as I have known many people who do not have computers or even cell phones. I never considered how difficult it was for them to find a job or do a research paper, it wasn’t until the idea of not having access to a form of computer was presented as a problem in today’s society.

I, myself am not a upperclassmen, but I have had access to computers and cellular devices since I was 9 years old, when my mom bought her first, and my first, desktop computer. We had dial-up at the time so I wasn’t on it much; it wasn’t until we got broadband when I really began to explore the features of the computer. At the time, teachers always considered that most students would not have a computer, so they were sure never to assign homework that required one, so I never considered the computer to be that important. It wasn’t until 10 years later when I saw the disadvantage of not having a computer. I was doing PSO at Cleveland state university for my senior year; so I spent all my time at college. The English classes, history class, Math class, Computer science class all required a large amount of typed papers and many assignments were online, however while at campus I had little access to any form of computers and oftentimes had to wait until I got home to do the work, despite being on campus for most of the day. Just about all of my peers had laptops and it was a bit aggravating to see them easily complete their work while I had to wait to get home. Through this experience I learned the disadvantage of not having access a computer, and it’s a feeling I won’t forget anytime soon.

I bought a laptop soon after I graduated from high school, but not everyone has this option. In fact, I’ve found that very few people have the option to just buy a computer or cell phone when they need one and so I plan to base my digital story on the lack of access to computers and how this affects people.

Annotations:

The Digital divide institute provides a large amount of information that talks about the status of the digital and even helps define the digital divide, the website has many good sources that I may be able to use.

                Jakob Nielson’s alert box digital divide discusses the causes for the divide and will be very helpful in exploring the origins of the divide.