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Mossberger, Tolbert, and Gilbert (2006) demonstrated that the majority of the digital divide for African Americans could be explained by demographic and community-level characteristics, such as socioeconomic status and geographic location. For the Latino population, ethnicity alone, regardless of economics or geography, seemed to limit technology use. Liff and Shepard (2004) found that women, who are accessing technology shaped primarily by male users, feel less confident in their Internet skills and have less Internet access at both work and home. Finally, Guillen and Suarez (2005) found that the global digital divide resulted from both the economic and sociopolitical characteristics of countries.

Use of technology and social media in society by individuals

Do you own an e-reader or tablet? What about your parents or your friends? How often do you check social media or your cell phone? Does all this technology have a positive or negative impact on your life? When it comes to cell phones, 67 percent of users check their phones for messages or calls even when the phone wasn’t ringing. In addition, “44% of cell owners have slept with their phone next to their bed because they wanted to make sure they didn’t miss any calls, text messages, or other updates during the night and 29% of cell owners describe their cell phone as ‘something they can’t imagine living without’” (Smith 2012).

While people report that cell phones make it easier to stay in touch, simplify planning and scheduling their daily activities, and increase their productivity, that’s not the only impact of increased cell phone ownership in the United States. Smith also reports that “roughly one in five cell owners say that their phone has made it at least somewhat harder to forget about work at home or on the weekends; to give people their undivided attention; or to focus on a single task without being distracted” (Smith 2012).

A new survey from the Pew Research Center reported that 73 percent of adults engage in some sort of social networking online. Facebook was the most popular platform, and both Facebook users and Instagram users check their sites on a daily basis. Over a third of users check their sites more than once a day (Duggan and Smith 2013).

With so many people using social media both in the United States and abroad, it is no surprise that social media is a powerful force for social change. You will read more about the fight for democracy in the Middle East embodied in the Arab Spring in Chapters 17 and 21, but spreading democracy is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to using social media to incite change. For example, McKenna Pope, a thirteen-year-old girl, used the Internet to successfully petition Hasbro to fight gender stereotypes by creating a gender-neutral Easy-Bake Oven instead of using only the traditional pink color (Kumar 2014). Meanwhile in Latvia, two twenty-three-year-olds used a U.S. State Department grant to create an e-petition platform so citizens could submit ideas directly to the Latvian government. If at least 20 percent of the Latvian population (roughly 407,200 people) supports a petition, the government will look at it (Kumar 2014).

Questions & Answers

Ayele, K., 2003. Introductory Economics, 3rd ed., Addis Ababa.
Widad Reply
can you send the book attached ?
Ariel
?
Ariel
What is economics
Widad Reply
the study of how humans make choices under conditions of scarcity
AI-Robot
U(x,y) = (x×y)1/2 find mu of x for y
Desalegn Reply
U(x,y) = (x×y)1/2 find mu of x for y
Desalegn
what is ecnomics
Jan Reply
this is the study of how the society manages it's scarce resources
Belonwu
what is macroeconomic
John Reply
macroeconomic is the branch of economics which studies actions, scale, activities and behaviour of the aggregate economy as a whole.
husaini
etc
husaini
difference between firm and industry
husaini Reply
what's the difference between a firm and an industry
Abdul
firm is the unit which transform inputs to output where as industry contain combination of firms with similar production 😅😅
Abdulraufu
Suppose the demand function that a firm faces shifted from Qd  120 3P to Qd  90  3P and the supply function has shifted from QS  20  2P to QS 10  2P . a) Find the effect of this change on price and quantity. b) Which of the changes in demand and supply is higher?
Toofiq Reply
explain standard reason why economic is a science
innocent Reply
factors influencing supply
Petrus Reply
what is economic.
Milan Reply
scares means__________________ends resources. unlimited
Jan
economics is a science that studies human behaviour as a relationship b/w ends and scares means which have alternative uses
Jan
calculate the profit maximizing for demand and supply
Zarshad Reply
Why qualify 28 supplies
Milan
what are explicit costs
Nomsa Reply
out-of-pocket costs for a firm, for example, payments for wages and salaries, rent, or materials
AI-Robot
concepts of supply in microeconomics
David Reply
economic overview notes
Amahle Reply
identify a demand and a supply curve
Salome Reply
i don't know
Parul
there's a difference
Aryan
Demand curve shows that how supply and others conditions affect on demand of a particular thing and what percent demand increase whith increase of supply of goods
Israr
Hi Sir please how do u calculate Cross elastic demand and income elastic demand?
Abari
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Source:  OpenStax, Introduction to sociology 2e. OpenStax CNX. Jan 20, 2016 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11762/1.6
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