Inequalities played out in the digital age

Cyber bullying is the use of information and communication technologies to victimise individuals. This is a growing problem and a headline grabber! (Lodge and Frydenberg: 2007)

Cyber-bullying shows the emergence of age old prejudices and disputes between school children played out via digital technology (although bullying is by no means limited to kids, cyber or otherwise!)

Lodge and Frydenberg stated in their University of Melbourne report on cyber-bullying that; emails, instant messaging, short messaging, multimedia messaging, web logs (blogs), personal websites, chat rooms, discussion boards, online personal polling sites have 'become an intricate part of their [children aged between 11-17] social being' (2007).

Their report which showed:

That girls from independent schools Had the highest rate of cyber-bullying. The report justified these results as a sign that higher socioeconomic groups would have more access to technology and that girls used communication technology more in forming friendships.

Lodge and Frydenberg, (2007), Cyber-bullying inAustralian schools, a profile of adolescent coping and insights for school practitioners, Unversity of Mebourne, vol 24 no1.

facebook and myspace junkies

Here are some true 'digital natives' (Prensky 2001). But is this a Utopian world of democratic connectedness or just another social space to play out the same inequalities?

Does it present the lawless world portrayed in CyberPunk fiction like William Gibson's "Johnny Mnemonic? It is all about creating your own reality or self. Just as the characters of Johnny Mnemonic are in control of their own physical reality the 'digital natives' of the Myspace and Facebook generation are able to spend hours of their lives in a world where their parents can not monitor them, where it is all about groups, friends and being cool. Where they can use widgets, applications, html, graphics and digitally enhanced images to create a profile of themselves which is not limited by their physical reality.

Then there are the people with too much access

I still have friends who don't have computers

When your head is spinning with reading up on blogs about up and coming technology and how to manage your online existance with new applications. When you are getting confused between Digg and Del ic ious and when it has just become apparent to you that you have moved only your fingers for the last 4 hours!!!! Then try not to panic, don't wig out! Or web-out for that matter. Just remeber that Web 2.0 is not your only access point to the world. Your facebook picture is not you, you are in fact looking a lot less healthy because of all the itme you have sat hunched infront of the computer!

I like to remind myself when i am feeling information overload, that some of my friends don't even have the internet. They seem happy. The problem is, once you get it that's it your dependent...or interdependent.

So these friends of mine without the internet, well, they are ot alone suprisingly. When considering factors effecting access to new media, the most obvious is of course internet access itself.

The UK's national statistics website says that in 2007 61% of the british population had internet access. This is a step up from just over 45% in 2002.

What about closer to home: The ABS states that

• 66% of dwellings in major cities have access to the Internet, compared to 42% for very remote Australia.
• For Broadband access, 46% of dwellings in major cities have broadband compared to 24% for remote areas.
• Corresponding access rates for Inner Regional, Outer Regional and Remote Australia are 56%, 52% and 53% for Internet access and 32%, 27% and 28% for Broadband access.

There are several key factors which effect individual access to the internet:

• Income
• Educational attainment
• Family composition
• Labour force status and occupation
• Gender and marital status
• English proficiency
• Age
• Indigenous status
• Disability

If i think about the firends of min who do not have the they are in most cases unmarried, young individuals who have chosen a trade over university education....mmm

They still seem to have an enviably simple life with more itme outside...what are we doing in fonrt of these screens. I am going to take a break.