I want more and I want it now.

DeGrandpre's readings made me reflect upon technology's implications over our society, especially over our children. What will it be like 100 years from now? Will engineers still be trying to develop a faster video game, something even more interactive than Wii (and perhaps Wii's sucessors)? Will ALL, and I mean ALL, newspapers be online-only? (Well, not necessarily online, but delivered in some interactive fashion.) Will hardcopies of books only exist in some sort of "antique" bookstores and libraries? Will libraries exist at all? I'm not sure what the answer to these questions is but, if DeGrandpre's assumptions are right, and I think they are, then the answer would be "yes."

"Another all-too-popular solution is to simply plug in more stimulating activities at school and home," says DeGrandpre. I was at a party the other day, where there were lots of young kids playing around adults. A "bored" 3-year-old started to become grumpy and complainy, when her mother took a portable DVD player and made the girl watch a movie (I think it was Madagascar). I must admit that it worked: the little girl was quiet and entertained for quite a while (so that all the adults could talk). Is that right, though? How about giving the little girl a piece of paper and crayons, or even an age-appropriate book, to help develop her cognitive abilities? "That's too much work," some parents would argue. Parents try to accomodate their young kids to a distracted way of life rather than trying to reduce their distraction by unplugging them, says DeGrandpre. I totally agree with him, because that's what I have seen lately.

Our habituation to all this stimulation makes the unplugged world to fail to grab our attention, and, as a result, people have constant need for an "optimal level of stimulation," DeGrandpre argues. No longer it is enough for many people to read the hardcopy of a newspaper, they need a video to go with it, I would add to DeGrandpre's "no longer" list. Although DeGrandpre wrote Digitopia a few years ago, his principles totally apply today. People's hunger for even more stimulation never stops. What's coming after Wii, Playstation 3 and games like Second Life? I'm sure there will be something new to satisfy people's "inflated need for speed." Wii's "wow factor" will soon be over, and users will want more out a video game.

Similarly, when DeGrandpre talks about our ever-lasting need for speed, something came to my mind right away: people are always complaining about their internet connection. Have you all realized that? It doesn't matter how fast it is -- people will always complain and want a faster one. Back in Brazil, where my house's broadband internet connection wasn't as fast as the connection we have on the UT campus, I used to complain a lot. Now that I'm here and have a pretty fast internet connection, I still find myself complaining at times. Isn't that funny? Does this happen to you as well?

"The more sensory addicted you become, the more you find that the unplugged world doesn't go fast enough or seem interesting enough," says DeGrandpre. There has to be a "half way through," in my opinion. Kids need to be exposed to fast computers and good graphics, but they should also appreciate and know the value of activities such as drawing, listening to music without the videoclip, and reading a book. As we discussed in one of our previous classes, because there is no end for the development of technology, I think it will be up to parents to stimulate children's interest in the unplugged world. This doesn't mean that I don't appreciate technology and that I think that kids have to keep a distance from it. I know it may sound a bit contradictory. I'm only defending that parents try to promote kids interest in the unplugged world as well.

Sufficient but not necessary

The Digital Divide brings up an incredibly salient point that seems to be rarely made in the digital divide dialogue. The digital divide is ultimately about the disparities in access to technology. But once that gap is closed, the article asks, will the social problems associated with the disparity disappear? 

OF COURSE NOT! Obviously it is not just a lack of access to technology that makes minorities perform lower on standardized tests. Lack of access to technology may be a necessary causal factor, but not a sufficient one. Does it not seem ridiculous now to think that access to the use of calculators or CABLE TELEVISION could restructure society? 

The point is, there are deeper reasons as to why there are disparities in educational performance. How could eliminating the digital divide ever be expected in and of itself to "improve educational performance and reduce economic and social inequality"??? What about our crappy public education system? What about centuries of the majority not allowing minorities access to an education AT ALL, which is one of the reasons minorities don't have the same probability of going to college and subsequently making as much money as the majority or at least enough to buy a computer and Internet access? 

Just as other technologies were seen as tools to destroy disparities but eventually turned into entertainment devices and became widely available to the public, eliminating the digital divide cannot be expected to cure or help in any significant way with the kind of inequalities discussed.