Internet: The Solution for Poverty?

Filed in archive News on October 12, 2009

© Justin Marty


There's no question that the internet changed the world. It changed the way we do business and the way we communicate. But does it change our economic status?

Martha Lane Fox, best known for her association with Lastminute.com and multiple digital outreach programs recently met with the BBC to discuss how to get poorer people in Britain online by 2012. Miss Lane Fox commissioned a study that shows households can save between £270 and £560 a year by using online resources (like online banking instead of driving everywhere). The study also shows that the internet can increase chances of employment through online job searches and email.

Roughly ten million people in the UK have never been online. Miss Lane Fox calls this phenomenon digital exclusion. She plans to connect four million of the poorest people to the internet in the next three years. She also plans to lobby government officials who may be unaware of the problem and promote her study.

In the past, many influential writers have discussed the digital divide, but it is usually in reference to the education of our children, not the income of our adults. Miss Lane Fox plans to create a task force of volunteers and companies willing to reach out to the disconnected. Particularly the elderly.

The question is, can we all ever be connected or will someone always end up on the outside? To get connected do we need to rely on government and corporate interference? As our global technology progresses, these questions loom even larger.

Do you believe online access could make a difference for poorer people? How so?