The Internet of Things — Widening the Digital Divide
A simple Amazon search will show that there is an endless number of products on the market that can be controlled by your smartphone. Thermostats, refrigerators, lights, security cameras, essential oil diffusers, even temperature-controlled mugs. The list goes on and on. The Internet of Things (abbreviated as IoT) refers to these devices that have been created with seamless internet-connected capabilities that allow data to be collected and transferred over a wireless network (aeris.com). The production of everyday objects with software, sensors, microchips, and other advanced technologies is only expected to progress. As we continue adopting new forms of technology, much like IoT devices, the digital disparity between members of society will widen.
To explain how the IoT could widen the preexisting digital disparity, it is important to discuss what the digital disparity is. The digital disparity, or digital divide, refers to the difference in access to technology between underprivileged citizens and privileged citizens. This difference in accessibility to technology can be attributed to factors such as variances in education, income, and race that give certain members of society advantages over others (“Digital Divide”).
When new technologies are introduced, the upper- and middle-class members of society can adopt these products into their lives, while members of the lower-class cannot. Luciano Floridi, the author of “Ethics after the Information Revolution”, explains that the advancement of technology and the availability of these technologies to only certain groups will create “new forms of discrimination” and alter society on a global and national level, by “widening generational, geographical, socio-economic and cultural divides.” This divide Floridi is referring to is a separation of those a part of the wirelessly connected world, due to the rise of IoT devices and other advancements, and those who aren’t.
This occurs because the technologically “rich” will continue to normalize new technologies, like IoT devices, at a rate that greatly surpasses the technologically “poor”, which further widens the technology gap in society. In other words, the addition of new technological resources gives more opportunities for the wealthy to participant in the digital world in ways members of less-fortune communities cannot. These disparities between communities are then strengthened and enable new ways to segregate one another, based on their ability to interact with the technological world.
When we implement new technology into society, the distribution of these products is rarely equal. It will take time before advanced technologies, such as the Internet of Things, became obtainable to all members of society. For now, the technologically rich will have the chance to engage in the digital world in new ways, while the technologically poor stay disconnected from these innovations.
