While we wait for Cole to drop the latest news from West Virginia. Will Oremus mines an Intel survey for his new #Slatepitch:
… Interestingly, the group most optimistic about technology’s role in their lives is women older than 45 who live in developing countries. In China, seven out of 10 women over 45 believe people don’t use technology enough, and 79 percent say it makes us more human. That figure is 70 percent across all of the emerging-market countries in the survey, including Brazil, India, and Indonesia. But just 22 percent of American women in the same age group agreed.
Bell said she was astonished by the finding at first. But she suspects it stems from women in developing countries having seen technology dramatically improve their quality of life in the past decade or two. Specifically, women in developing countries said they believe technological innovations will improve education, transportation, work, and health care in the years to come. And they’re willing to help: 86 percent said they’d be willing to use software that watches their work habits, and 77 percent were open to the idea of using “smart toilets” to monitor their health.
In short, the Evgeny Morozov school of techno-skepticism seems to be catching on among young people in rich countries who take their gadgets for granted but fear for their privacy. But in countries where “quality of life” means access to basic education, health care, and sanitation, technology is still generally seen as an unalloyed good. To them, it seems, it’s privacy that’s the unnecessary luxury.
Lots of bullshit mining in such a short piece, but here’s my starter:
(1) Apart from the obvious alte kacker jokes, not a big surprise that an old lady would be willing to trade surveillance in return for the safe, indoor toilet facilities she doesn’t have now.
(2) Also not a big surprise that poor, undereducated elderly women will give the young, overenthusiastic young professionals whatever answers those kids are trolling for.
(3) Of course old women in small villages consider privacy a “luxury”; they know just how much that luxury, like most others, has been denied them all their lives. Anybody ever spent time in a community (even a virtual village, like say this blog) can attest that nobody ever forgets, and damn few neighbors forgive.
Friday Night Open Thread: Yer Momma Don’t Care About PrivacyPost + Comments (32)
