Digital Divide?

Conventional definitions of the phrase 'Digital Divide' refer to the socio-economic or knowledge gap caused by disparity in access to technology between rich and poor countries, or between rich and poor segments of society.

Singapore, being fairly small and homogeneous, as well as on the cutting edge of modern ICT trends has no use for such definitions. There is a different digital divide here, that between the old and the young. Between those who pay their bills over the Internet, and those who queue up at the post office on Saturday mornings clutching a stack of bills in one hand, and a roll of cash in the other. Between the youngsters who can navigate their way through crowds and across busy streets while furiously typing away at their phone keypads, and adults who can barely send a single SMS message correctly.

There are, of course, exceptions. I was at dinner last night with Sa, and over my bowl of chicken curry I chanced to overhear three older ladies (probably in their 50s) discussing and complaining about their respective bosses. One of them (the oldest looking) sounded very similar to my boss's secretary and she caught my attention, so I listened on. Presently their conversations changed to their mobile phones. To my surprise (and some delight too), the lady who had attracted my attention started describing the features on her latest phone. It was amazing to hear her talk about T9 and Bluetooth and megapixels, and I was absolutely flabbergasted when she started explaining 3G to her colleagues.

And then there are exceptions. A fairly young colleague of mine (whom I will call Del) recently bought a new phone - an NEC something-or-the-other. This is a 3G phone that a relative of hers got at a special price and sold to her. She knew this was a 3G phone, and for that reason had requested to buy it off her relative. The first question she asked me when I got into work that morning was, "What's 3G?". Ok no big deal, not everyone is familiar with 3G, so I explained it to her, and said she'd need to get a new SIM card to activate the 3G features. I honsetly didn't anticipate the next question - "What's a SIM card?".

And this is the same person who, at another colleague's birthday celebration at office, excitedly got up to film her cutting the cake, using her new phone's camera. Once she did that, she had no idea what to do with the clip, since she didn't know how to connect to her laptop, nor did she know anything about MMS. And I couldn't help her because the phone's UI sucked and I lost patience.

And she works as a Technology Project Manager.