Making a living has become way too complicated. Is it any wonder 12 million people are unemployed in the United States?
Once upon time, everyone had a skill, and if you stuck with it long enough, you could live a fairly comfortable , if not quite middle class life. No more. The digital divide has divided us all.
Back around 2001, the digital divide was not having internet access or knowing how to use PowerPoint. Remember when PowerPoint was cool? Flash drive 12 years later and the landscape has changed. Everyone from dogs to decrepit cat ladies has a computer, internet access, and a FACEBOOK page.
Where the original digital divide was a the gap between Internet haves and have not’s, the second level digital divide, or the production gap, “describes the gap that separates the consumers of content on the internet from the producers of content.” Meaning, users of ”Web 2.0 technologies like FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, and Blogs have the ability to take part online and create content” without knowing what the heck they are doing. Nice.
Which gets back to the unemployment question. Job postings today require a certain type of technological aptitude unimaginable in earlier decades. Where before it was enough for a secretary (today’s administrative assistant) to type 4o-words a minute, take dictation, and make a mean pot of coffee; now they must type 4o-words a minute, make a mean pot of coffee, take dictation, look like Taylor Swift, speak Spanish, have a bachelor’s degree, and be savvy in all things Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Social Media.
Is there even room anymore for the partially technologically literate? What’s to become of Average Joe 1.0? Here’s wondering if it’s not too late for the Duggar’s to adopt kid #20.
Are you have trouble finding work because of the digital divide?
