Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Online Information Review, Volume 39, Issue 4.

The internet, digital technologies and evolving markets

Digital technologies are reaching ever further into remote parts of the world, changing how people access, use and create information and knowledge (IDS, 2015b).

As if to confirm this February 2015 statement from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), we now have Meeker’s Internet Trends 2015 to give us up-to-date figures: from about 35 million Internet users in 1995 to 2.8 billion users in 2014, from 0.6% population penetration in 1995 to 39% population penetration in 2014 (Meeker, 2015). To put this in a different perspective, “The number of Internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013. The first billion was reached in 2005. The second billion in 2010. The third billion in 2014” (Internet Live Stats, 2015).

The Meeker Report also makes some fairly broad generalisations about what is happening in the Internet world. For example, we are told that “developing markets tend to have lower GDP per capita/spending power/infrastructure” (4th form economics), with one set of examples listing Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar, among others, as having >50 million population but <50% smart phone penetration. This is certainly not unexpected and in fact is the norm in developing countries – for the moment.

The figures in Table I (see below) from Internet Live Stats (2015) gives us a somewhat different perspective. However, before commenting on these percentages, a caveat is in order: in Internet Live Stats an “Internet User” is defined as “an individual who can access the Internet, via computer or mobile device, within the home where the individual lives”. That is, the count is based only on individuals with Internet access at home, which must certainly skew the percentages downwards in less developed countries, where Internet cafés are still ubiquitous, as a walk down the streets of Phnom Penh, Vientiane or Saigon confirms. Large numbers of people in such cities still gain Internet access in Internet cafés – but if these people lack access at home, they are not counted in these statistics.

Table I Increase in Internet Penetration 2014 (figures from Internet Live Stats, 2015)

That caveat aside, what do the figures show us? In India and Cambodia the 2014 increase in Internet penetration rose by a greater percentage than it did in Australia, Canada, the UK and Germany. In Myanmar and Thailand this penetration increased by a greater percentage than in Canada, the UK and Germany. Less developed countries like Cambodia and Myanmar exhibit a very low Internet penetration compared with any of the developed countries in this list. Yet at the same time across Asia Internet uptake is increasing faster than in many developed countries, and in some (the UK and Germany) growth is slowing dramatically. This certainly confirms the IDS view that digital technologies are indeed reaching further into remote parts of the world.

But wait – what do these figures not tell us? In a study of the empowering force of ICTs, and how disadvantaged people may continue to be disadvantaged while technological change takes place, Kleine (2013) sought answers to two questions: (1) How can disadvantaged people gain access to technologies that might help them to transform their lives? (2) Having gained access, how can we ensure they are not further disadvantaged by the framing of institutions, social norms of use and ideas embedded in technologies?

These are indeed important questions seeking answers throughout the developing world. Kleine sought answers though studying a rural community in Chile. One perhaps unexpected finding was that relatively income-poor people successfully negotiate aspects of the social structure and successfully overcome the barriers created by these structures. Why is this important? Because, as physical access to ICTs increases and people gain very basic skills in using these ICTs, significant structural barriers still exist or are created to limit that access. Here the key words in Kleine’s findings seem to have been availability, affordability, skills threshold and norms on the use of time and space. The gist of Kleine’s findings is that people are, by whatever means, learning how to access the necessary technologies, and also to negotiate social and political barriers to that access. This is no small achievement, as we know well how effectively state, corporate and civil society powers shape the ICT infrastructure, core technologies and standards. That the disadvantaged poor have their own ways of catching-up is admirable, but still very much an ad hoc process.

In a recent research project now reported in two Institute of Development Studies publications (IDS, 2015a, b), the broad findings clearly show that the ways in people access, use and create information and knowledge are changing as ICTs penetrate ever deeper into the social, cultural and educational fabric of developing countries, but the project team also issues a grim warning:

These changes may improve people’s lives by making information more available, increasing avenues for political and economic engagement, and making governments more transparent and responsive. However, they also carry dangers of growing digital divides, threats to privacy, and the potential loss of diversity of knowledge. Governments, development agencies and civil society organisations need to work together to make knowledge more inclusive and open. This calls for investment in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure, information professionals, and search and discovery tools (IDS, 2015b).

By not making knowledge “more inclusive and open”, that is, by not improving levels of access for all citizens, we will just perpetuate and even increase the knowledge/digital divide wherever it exists. For IDS one way to help overcome this possible scenario is through the creation of policies and strategies that will “develop capacities and skills among vulnerable groups” (IDS, 2015b). Policy creation and policy implementation are fine ideals, but how do we measure the effectiveness of implementation? The IDS suggests that “a common set of goals and meaningful metrics are needed that capture […] basic access […] and levels of access and behaviours”. But we have sought such metrics, without much success, for decades.

There may well be truth in this assertion, and in other similar suggestions in the IDS reports, but is it not frustrating when we are thrown back on “talking the talk” of policy-making which decade after decade has led to little meaningful change, with the rich becoming richer and the poor, poorer? Back in the 1970s population control was said to be the solution to so many of the world’s problems, yet a New Scientist subscription email dated 28 June 2015 reports that every second 4.3 people are born and 1.8 people die – and another second is coming…. So whatever happened to our great ideals for population control?

And what will happen to our well-meaning digital policies and strategies for sustainable development that encompass better access, more privacy, knowledge sharing, cooperation incentives and the rest of the rhetoric of 2015? With the best will in the world it is difficult to be very positive when the evidence of history pushes us to the pessimistic conclusion that not much will happen to create a more equitable and fairer digital society. I hope to be proven wrong.

G.E. Gorman

References

Institute of Development Studies(2015a), “The future of knowledge sharing in a digital age: exploring impacts and policy implications for development, by J. Gregson et al. (IDS Evidence Reports, 125)”, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, available at: http://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/5946/ER125_TheFutureofKnowledgeSharinginaDigitalAge.pdf;jsessionid=67D8880F10CF6A2250F16DEB741C5616?sequence=1 (accessed 30 May 2015)

Institute of Development Studies (2015b), “Knowledge sharing and development in a digital age, by N. Bimbe et al. (IDS Policy Briefings, 87)”, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, available at: www.ids.ac.uk/publication/knowledge-sharing-and-development-in-a-digital-age (accessed 30 May 2015)

Internet Live Stats (2015), available at: www.InternetLiveStats.com (accessed 30 May 2015).

Kleine, D. (2013), Technologies of Choice? ICTs, Development and the Capabilities Approach (The Information Society Series), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

Meeker, M. (2015), Internet Trends 2015 – CODE Conference 27 May 2015, available at: www.kpcb.com/internet-trends (accessed 31 May 2015).