Consider if you will: this is being written at 11:15 PM in my cosy little dorm room with the heater whirring in the corner and disembodied voices occasionally seeping through the cracks around the door. Chances are, you will not be reading this from the same place, or even close to the same time that I am writing it. This “separation of presence”, as described by Nancy Baym in the first chapter of Personal Connections in the Digital Age is not a new concept. People have written on (cave) walls long before Facebook ever popularized the practice. The difference is that it is now possible to immediately send and receive messages while experiencing this separation of presence.
Despite the immediacy that current technology provides, the challenges - privacy, translation and misinterpretation, among others - of obsolete communication methods remain. As Baym states, the boundaries between public and private communication are blurred. It is possible for others to read what others have posted on Facebook walls in the same way anyone can see the contents of a cave drawing, if they are lucky enough to catch a glimpse. Here again, we see a shift from primitive cave scrawlers. What was once accessible for several people is now available for viewing by countless others. Many concerns about privacy raised in Baym’s book are concerns that have existed (in more primal forms) since the ancestors of humanity first became vocal.
It is a thought-provoking fact that particular technologies have flourished in certain geographic locations and not others. For example, cell phones are much more popular than the Internet in developing countries. This is largely due to its patchy availability and the expenses incurred in order to connect to the web. It would appear that the usefulness of a “separation of presence” is limited by the demands of the communicators. The communication demands of the third world can be economically accomplished with a cell phone, so there is little need for accompanying technology.
In 2005, a computer was developed that would cost under $150 USD, with the intent to provide cheap laptops to children outside of the first-world. The program was spearheaded by MIT and named “One Laptop Per Child”. Its developers hoped to allow children of low-income countries to connect to the Internet and use technology in their education. Despite many computers being purchased and distributed, the program was a devastating failure. Adding computers to a learning environment can be a useful tool, but only if the education system can properly implement them. A poor education system, in which students are solely responsible for the regurgitation of information, is not one in which computers or the Internet are used to their full potential. (Ruge)
After a few large purchases by wealthy groups, demand for the device dropped dramatically. The reason for this, and the reason why developing countries use cell phones far more commonly than the Internet is because the technologies were developed by those in developed countries to meet the needs of consumers in developed countries. The developers of the “One Laptop Per Child” program failed to research what would benefit children in developing nations, and instead made a computer that was useful for the technological demands of the first-world. There was little need for the machine in the first place. (Nussbaum)
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For more information about the “One Laptop Per Child” operation, visit:
http://laptopfoundation.org/
Additional Sources:
Nussbaum, Bruce. "It's Time To Call One Laptop Per Child A Failure, - BusinessWeek." BusinessWeek. N.p., 24 Sep. 2007. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. <http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2007/09/its_time_to_call_one_laptop_per_child_a_failure.html/>.
Ruge, Tms. "Why OLPC is “...dead in the water”… still." Project Diaspora. N.p., 17 Mar. 2010. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. <projectdiaspora.org/2010/03/17/why-olpc-is-dead-in-the-water-still/>.
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