Reflecting on Hyperlinked Communities
Reflection of Hyperlinked Communities
There were several articles from this module that stood out to me. The first was West’s article on the digital divide. I am consciously aware of the growing digital divide, especially as I see it with my own eyes when helping my parents or grandparents navigate their smartphones and the internet. Digital and technological literacy is something that I believe to be extremely important and the statistics that West offers is honestly quite concerning (2014). What is so essentially different from even 2014, however, is how widespread technology has become. Libraries, I feel, are no longer the go-to source for how to do things. Instead those who struggle with technology refer to those close to them who are already digitally literate. Libraries are being cut out of the technology loop as personal networks are doing the educating and heavy lifting.
I connected the West Article to the Warner (2024) article. I love the idea of kiosks. I find the DMV kiosks extremely useful for things like renewing registration. Warner notes that kiosks can aid in the creation of “beneficial partnerships” and create opportunities for outreach and engagement (2024). I believe and support this belief. Those who are able to access AND use the kiosks will certainly have a grand time doing so. It will make some tasks much more convenient. However, the digital divide does not discriminate kiosks. During one visit to a DMV kiosk, I waited in line for nearly 20 minutes as an older woman in front of me struggled to pay. The kiosk repeatedly refused to accept her card and continued to do so with other patrons’ cards. I, however, tried paying with a digital card (think Apple or Google Pay) and it worked. This is the trouble that can arise with kiosks. Kiosks can emerge seemingly at random and have little to no human support when users need to troubleshoot.
Libraries need to address this concern well before kiosks are implemented in their communities. We must ask how digitally literate is our community? Will the kiosks be easy to operate? What methods of support can we offer those who are struggling with technology? This is perhaps where the job creation part of Warner’s article can be useful (2024). Live support via phone or chat can be a good way of supporting the community. If the locale is small enough, then in-person support services may work too. We must still remain vigilant and empathetic of our communities’ needs, especially when it comes to technology that we believe to ease burdens.
References
Warner, L. (2024, January 17). Revolutionizing Public Libraries: Three Ways that Alternative Service Delivery Strategies Can Meet the Challenges of a Booming Population. Medium. https://medium.com/@lauracwarner/revolutionizing-public-libraries-ff7fed3d2c5
West, J. (2014). 21st Century Digital Divide. Librarian.net. https://www.librarian.net/talks/rlc14/
4 Comments
Daisy Chia
Hi Niko,
You made a great connection between the rising use of kiosks and the digital divide. The lack of human support, other than kind fellow users, can make it extremely frustrating. I experienced this recently just trying to pay for parking.
At my library, we have a program that pairs tech savy teens with seniors which has been really great for all involved! My teenager is a volunteer and really enjoys connecting with someone from a different generation who has lived an interesting life while helping them with their digital devices. Not everyone has a digital literate family member close by to help.
The divide is really striking, isn’t it? Its not only age related, it is also about affordability and trust. Can you afford a decent smartphone and are you willing to add your financial information into it so you can use a digital payment system for transit for example?
-Daisy
Mei C.
@daisychia I LOVE the idea of matching tech-savvy tens with community seniors! That is really a brilliant way to foster innter-generational connection and build meaning for everyone, especially, as you pointed out, that many older people do not have family close by to help them breach the digital divide.
On a different note, I have been thinking a lot about self-service kiosks and the rise of the cashless society. Not only, as @nsigua writes, are there real, concrete issues with not having a human to troubleshoot or help, but there are a LOT of people out there who do not have access to an all-plastic payment system. Having a bank account and a credit card cannot be assumed, let alone having a digtial payment account like Venmo or ApplePay. This, I thnk, is a very insidious form of exclusion, one that we will all need to grapple with as a society.
Thanks so much for writing about this, and grappling with these questions with me!
Mei
Lindsay Mahowald
Hi Niko,
I resonate with your post because the digital divide is something I see in my library on a regular basis. There are people who want to apply for jobs or buy things from online stores or share photos on social media, but they struggle because they don’t have the digital literacy that modern society requires a person to have. In order to stay relevant in the technology conversation, our library heavily advertises our ability to help people with their technology needs.
You raise important questions that libraries should ask when they consider when implementing kiosks, or any modern technology for that matter. This connects to the question raised in the Libraries in Balance Section of Wholehearted Librarianship: when our patrons need basic needs met, how do we balance this with utilizing emerging technologies (Stephens, 2019)? Evaluating community need and level of comfortability with technology is necessary and the questions you ask are a great starting point to evalute this.
Michael Stephens
@nsigua I so appreciate your exploration of the digital divide and kiosks and how wonderful is the conversation around this post from your classmates. Perhaps as libraries get more and more partnerships with organizations that might want to place a kiosk they need to sort out that tech-support/help issue. Those things should be part of the early conversation about implementation.