To what extent has information technology reduced social inequality?

People who live in highly developed countries often take access to information technology for granted. They find it hard to imagine a world in which this technology does not bring greater prosperity. However, as the IT revolution moves forward in some parts of the world, in other parts of the world the poor are falling further and further behind. Indeed there are many barriers to wider IT access and its potential benefit.

To begin with, illiteracy is a major obstacle for social inequality and IT is not acceptable for those people who cannot read even in their native language. And what about people whose mother tongue is not English? I live in Ukraine. Here it is normal to get primary education for everyone because it is free. But even my parents who are educated people can not use the computer and the Internet because they do not speak English. And being able to use/understand English at least at the levels A1-A2 is a must for accessing the Internet.

Moreover, basic infrastructure in some countries is inadequate. Again I use my own country as an example. In my region we face a problem of an irregular electricity/energy supply. Sometimes we do not have electricity for some several hours a day and sometimes we even don’t have it for some days.

And the last but not the least is a the cost of Internet access. In highly developed countries free WiFi in public places is a widespread facility. Here we enjoy free Internet only in a few places of a the city. And in order to get cable Internet for a home PC the one has to pay a sum which is quite high according to a typical salary. A monthly fee is equal to ¼ of a the average salary. So not every person who wants to access the Internet has such an opportunity.

To sum this up I would like to underline stress that the appearance of international technology has not reduced social inequality itself. It gave some more opportunities for poorer people but they not always can use them.

This is some mighty fine English you got there, Lina. :P Your knowledge of the grammar is impeccable! Most of the changes I made were just to make it a bit more natural, but nothing extreme. I'm really impressed. ^^

To comment on your article, I mean... I agree with it. :P In my country, Internet is everywhere, to the point where even the homeless can get online relatively easily... not that bums surfing the web is a common sight here, mind you. But still - just because one country has it easy, doesn't mean all of them do. I think we can both agree that food is perhaps the biggest necessity of all, yet even that can be hard to find for certain families in many countries.

I believe Internet should be something much more easily attainable for the poor in poorer countries, but the people in power don't. And until the poor don't starve, and have clean clothes, and have a free education available to them... easier access to the Internet won't be high on the priority list, I fear. There's so much wrong in this world, yet those who can fix the problems just build their fences higher and their houses farther away from the issues. There's no need to worry about things that don't directly affect them, or about things they refuse to see. >.<

Thank you for the thought-provoking report. ^^ And sorry for blabbing (= talking) so much. :P Whenever an entry on here interests me, I have to comment on it. And excellent job once again. :)