The term “Previously Disadvantaged” refers to the group of South Africans citizens discriminated against and
denied certain privileges on the grounds of their race or color during the apartheid era. The question is – are they still being denied certain privileges in the digital era?
Bridging the divide
Type “South Africa, a country of…” into your search bar and Google completes your sentence with the word “diversity”. With a variety of black ethnic groups, the largest communities of European, Asian and racially mixed ancestry in Africa, plus 11 official languages, it’s no wonder we’re called the Rainbow Nation.
However, with an unemployment rate of 25%, most of the population living on less than US $1.25 a day and the prices of connectivity still remaining among the highest in the world (no thanks to the monopolistic service providers left to prosper after a post-apartheid/currently-corrupt government), there does not seem to be a pot of gold at the end of this fragile rainbow.
Well, so you might think.
A massive economical and educational divide might still exist, and this is generally speaking, but at least the digital divide appears to be closing thanks to advances in mobile technology. In fact, IBM predicts that, thanks to mobile, the digital divide will cease to exist in the next 5 years.
This is a pretty optimistic prediction if you ask any local sangoma (type of shaman), but nonetheless, one that at the very least, brings hope.
For most people technology means enablement, for some it means empowerment
Ever heard of Mxit (pronounced “mix it”)? It’s Africa’s largest mobile social network (at time if writing) with over 10 million average active users. Here are some stats taken in 2012:
- Average of 535 640 289 messages sent a day. That’s over 500 million! (According to an article in the Washington Post, March 2013, Twitter users send over 400 million tweets per day.)
- Average time spent online per week: 1.5 hours (Facebook: 6.75 hours; Pinterest: 1.5 hours; Tumblr: 1.5 hours; Twitter: 21 mins – from Mashable.com, Nov 2012)
- 80% of users log in more than once a day (TechMark reports that “at least 60% of Google+ users log in daily”.)
With over 60 million registered accounts, this South African-born network which allows users to sign-up and connect with each other for free, proves just how desperately low-income South Africans (and Africans) crave and savor connectivity.
People in developing countries are developing new ways to communicate with each other
In 2012, at the age of 13, a boy living in Sierra Leone created batteries and generators using materials he picked up around the house. Kelvin Doe, a completely self-taught engineer, also managed his own fully-staffed community radio station and became the youngest person in history to be invited to the “Visiting Practitioner’s Program” at MIT.
Kelvin wasn’t looking to invent an alternative power source or create a new startup, he wanted to help out and was looking for a way to communicate with his family and friends. And his modest internet-less podcast reached far beyond his village.
Technology is helping to break down the digital divide – which in turn is helping to break down the cultural divide
South Africa might be the “Land of Many Faces”, but most of these faces are either hidden behind over-paranoid suburban electric fences or in perceived no-go township areas.
Take my personal experience for instance: even though I genuinely care for and appreciate our domestic worker (or housekeeper in some countries), we don’t socialize and probably never will. But as Facebook would have it, her daughters have ‘befriended’ my wife and thus I’ve recently learned a lot more about Maria than what she was willing to share with me.
Maria’s husband has been verbally and physically abusing her for years. He lost his job and started to drink. Feeling emasculated by his wife being the only breadwinner, he took his frustrations out on her. Maria went to the police and her husband was jailed. But on request of her four children, she paid his bail with the little money she had left and he was released. Maria and the kids moved in with her mother and for a while things were going well. Until her husband arrived at her door one morning. He assaulted her with a hammer and stole her handbag. (Something that apparently happens quite regularly in the townships.)
This was when my wife saw Maria’s 14-year old daughter’s distress on Facebook.
Maria’s daughters managed and cared for her, with the help of their aging grandmother and neighbors for a few weeks until she was fit to work again. We supported her how and where we could and that’s when I gave her a pep talk, emergency numbers and a can of pepper spray – saying: “Like you’ve always got your phone in the one pocket, you must always keep this in the other pocket.” She got it.
My wife and I are now in the process of helping Maria’s second eldest to apply for university – a privilege Maria never had. And guess what, she wants to enroll as a mechanical engineer. Not a teacher, or a nurse or a social worker like so many black females before her – but an engineer!
From previously disillusioned to currently inspired
During my 10 years in the communications industry and more recently as a social media strategist, I’ve noted that there is a close correlation between consumer LSM (Living Standards Measure) and consumer online behavior. The lower the household income, the more active the user seems to be on social media networks.
The previously disadvantaged seems to have found their voice. And this voice doesn’t want to topple governments (that happened back in 1992) or change legislation (that happend in 1994). No, they just want to join the conversation, be noticed and share stuff – their opinions, stories and their lives.
I guess we all just want to be remembered.
What unites us is stronger than what divides us
All I’m trying to say is that we are all previously disadvantaged in one way or another. Some more than others, of course. But despite years of apartheid and high electric fences or impenetrable township roads – we still just want to connect with each other. Thankfully, in the digital world the real-world boundaries do not exist. It’s neutral ground, a new era.
So here’s to making new connections with old neighbors and making new neighbors altogether. Here’s to eenheid. Here’s to the Currently Advantaged.