Government should force the IT industry to bridge the data divide

The IT industry in its rush to bring faster, better and "more robust" product to market has ignored the impact of the so-called "data divide" where one group of people is considered "IT-aware" and the other group is considered "not aware".

This "not aware" group essentially comprises the public at large including professionals in many fields who have had little or no exposure to IT in the course of their careers and home life.

Many of us may consider this almost unheard of. Some may even consider the phenomenon of "IT-unaware" people as "not possible". After all, we are reading this article on an Internet-capable device and most of this group would probably consider doing without their PC or laptop and/or PDA a parlous state of affairs.

Yet this "data divide" is now having such an effect that it is causing considerable suffering in society and a noticeable loss to the economy.

Consider first the inter-personal side of the human dimension. How tolerant are you when attempting to explain how some of your information reaches its destination when speaking to an IT illiterate person (a sadly pejorative term)? How tolerant are you when trying to explain to this same person the benefits of research on the Internet as an almost limitless repository of information?

In most such cases, one party has the appearance of an ardent zealot of almost messianic proportions and the other party has a glazed look whilst muttering something about needing to immediately talk to someone else or needing to refresh their beverage.

All this angst occurs at just the interpersonal level. What cost is this discomfort (to the individuals concerned and society per se) including the inevitable distancing of persons whenever the subject of IT raises itself - usually instigated by the zealots?

Sadly, most of us who are attuned - albeit reluctantly - to today's demanding work and social norms will dismiss this aspect of "the divide" as trivial and "passing" but I suggest otherwise. Further study should not only continue to highlight but also quantify the cost to society of this.

Second, consider the impact of IT on all persons throughout their daily lives. That is, does anyone really care what impact IT has on the human soul or spirit considering that humans are exposed to some aspect of IT almost every minute of every day? Whether in the kitchen, commuting to work, or at work, microchips and IT control our day.

Again, this aspect of our tech-riddled "brave new world" is usually trivialised by the assumption that this is now the norm. How good for us is this vaunted progress?

History has shown us that a head-long and hasty dash down one path without suitable planning can have its negative consequences e.g. colonialisation, the early parts of the industrial revolution, the highly questionable benefits of "the nuclear age", allowing pharmaceutical companies to patent certain parts (if not all) of genome sequencing and, no doubt, more to follow.

At the risk of inviting mutterings such as "it has ever been thus" referencing the human condition and its insistence on progress via the painful method of trial-and-error, if there was ever a time for justifiable interdiction, it is now. In this information age the majority of our working day is preoccupied with data (information) manipulation as the mechanism for getting things done.