06 July, 2005

The internet

I went to the hansard society meeting last night apart from the occasional yawn, I basically understood what was being said. Mind you I was expecting something to go wrong as things were going wrong for me most of the day yesterday. They came out with all these facts and figures of people that were on line during the election. I know the figure of people that use the internet is growing all the time but I was thinking of something Tony Blair had said about wanting to get I think it was sixty percent of the population on line. All I could think was how the hell was this was going to be done or is it just the well off he's targeted again. What about the other forty percent? Are these the low paid workers? People on benefit? Are these the ones that have to miss out again? The cost of using the internet per month is around £17.00 plus line connect £9.00. That's a total of twenty six pounds, which is a lot of money for a person on a low wage on benefit. I think the question that should we should be asking is how do you make the internet available to all? Because as I understand things the future of mail looks to be with computer's. technology is already in schools, offices and cafes. I don't see us sending letters in the future. I could go on and explain that the postal service appalling and is on it's last throws of the dice, but I wont. What I think we should be doing is showing people the advantages of the internet. Things you can do. Then maybe the more people that use it then the cheaper it becomes. Well that's my theory anyway. It just seems to me we are being bombarded with new technology all the time and it's always what I call the second class citizen that gets left behind. What about the people that can't afford a computor? The government have to come up with something that everyone can gain from. It's not just about fairness. It's about the right of someone to better themselves.

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