Not a Problem :: Argumentative Internet Equal Access Essays

Not a Problem In today's hi-tech world, there are millions of people who are connected through the internet. Almost all of these users are living in industrialized nations, such as the United States. But there are many nations that lack the infrastructure necessary to support such forms of communication. Many of these nations are third world countries. In this essay, I am going to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of providing deprived regions of the world with such technology, and I will offer some better ways to spend our limited resources. I would have a difficult time arguing the case that no good could come from a world where everyone is connected to the internet. In fact, the world could benefit greatly if everyone was connected. The challenge lies in weighing the costs and the benefits. Is it worth the time and money needed to bring these people together? If general population of internet free individuals had the capabilities to connect to the rest of the world, would they utilize the technology? Do other issues need to be taken care of before we about giving everyone access to a computer? These are all things that need to be considered when addressing the topic of fair access. To get things started, how would giving people, who are currently without access to the internet, some form of connectivity help the rest of the world? I think that bringing the deprived people a tool as useful as the internet would do great things. Granting accessibility to the near endless expanse that we call cyberspace would bring a wealth of information to the destitute and uninformed. People would be able to communicate and express themselves in ways that had never been possible. They would be able to make educated decisions about issues that they may have otherwise not known about. The internet would bring another dimension to millions of people's lives. But how useful would this information be when more than nine hundred million adults cannot read, and millions more are considered functionally illiterate (Mooney 366). I will admit that bringing the internet to these people would bring them vast quantities of information, but that information is useless if they do not have the fundamental knowledge needed to decode the text that is the foundation of every webpage. Consider this for example: I could hand you a book containing all the secrets of the universe, but if the book was written in code, you would not be able to do anything with that knowledge.