Digital Inequality in Chinatown

Seeing the perspective of someone who doesn't constantly have digital information in their lives apposed to us who live off of our phones and have instant access whenever we need it was surprisingly refreshing to read. Although I was aware that many people do not have access to the internet or know how to use technology, I never really thought too much about it or looked into it. Finding out that "only about 56 percent of Chinatown residents report having Internet access at home, compared with a city average of around 88 percent" was quite shocking (Hong). San Fransisco is a very technology based city, so to see a group of people there that do not have access to internet seems so unlikely, but it is happening. 

Going to a library to use the internet seems like an outdated thing to do. I remember when I was younger I would go to the library to use the internet at times, but that wasn't the only way of accessing the internet for myself. The other 44% of people that only access the internet this way are left out from many things today. Some of them only know how to look at a few news articles and email with the help of a librarian. These types of people are not in the loop with what people are doing today because of this. Most jobs and other things require internet to do their work in some way, shape, or form and these people are unable to excel in these areas. Even the simple thing of "googling" something on the spot is unavailable to many people in Chinatown. 

We are constantly learning new things and progressing with technology but without the internet, you can't continually do this to the fullest. Recently I found out that a friend of mine, Joey, who had downgraded their iPhone to a "dumb phone" that only had calling and texting. I was surprised that anybody in 2016 would actually do this because of how attached we are to technology and phones. Joey is the opposite of these people in Chinatown. He has given up his instant access to internet and only uses it in his home but he is still apart of the 56% of people who have this access at home. 

Overall, people in Chinatown have a large digital inequality to most people in todays society.

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