数字世界应属于所有人 What we should know about the internet

In a world in which a growing proportion of the population spends a growing proportion of their lives online, politicians and policymakers pay far too little attention to digital demographics.

在越来越多的人每天在网上花费越来越多时间的当今世界，政治人士和政策制定者对于数字人口结构的关注过少。

governments and research organisations typically measure internet “access”. A 2015 Pew study, for instance, found that 16 per cent of all US adults do not use the internet, a number that included 42 per cent of over-65s but only 4 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds. The European Commission has mapped the EU in terms of how often residents in subregions across different EU countries access the internet. As of 2009, 30 per cent of EU citizens had never used the internet at all.

政府和研究机构一般会衡量互联网“接入”。例如，皮尤(Pew) 2015年的一项研究发现，16%的美国成年人不上网，这其中包括42%的65岁以上人群，但只有4%的18岁至29岁人群。欧盟委员会(European Commission)根据不同成员国各个地区居民的上网次数绘制了欧盟的情况。截至2009年，30%的欧盟公民从未使用互联网。

Access, however, is just the beginning. Being able to get online does not measure the quality of the experience or the ability to take advantage of it.

然而，互联网接入只是开始。能够上网并不能衡量上网体验的质量，或者利用互联网的能力。

What we really need to know is how fast and how reliably people are connecting to the internet — and what they are able to do once they are connected. Are they mobile users who have access to strong mobile phone networks, who also have a laptop or desktop to carry out more complicated tasks? Or are they mobile-only users with spotty service, or members of a family or even a village with one smartphone to be shared?

我们真正需要了解的是，人们接入互联网的速度有多快、有多可靠以及一旦上网他们能够做什么。他们是否是可以接入强大手机网络的移动用户、还有笔记本电脑或台式机来执行更复杂的任务？或者他们是只有手机、上网服务不稳定的用户，或者是共用一部智能手机的家庭甚至村子的一员？

In a study of technology and learning in low-income families, researchers from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center conducted a survey of 1,200 lower- and medium-income parents in the US with children aged between 6 and 13. They found that 94 per cent of the families surveyed are connected to the internet in some way. But 52 per cent said it is too slow; 20 per cent said their internet had been cut off in the past year due to lack of payment; 23 per cent of families below the median income had mobile internet only, and 21 per cent said that “too many people share the same phone for them to get the time on it they need”.

在一项针对低收入家庭的科技和学习情况的研究中，琼甘兹库尼中心(Joan Ganz Cooney Center)的研究人员对1200对子女在6岁至13岁的美国中低收入父母展开了调查。他们发现，94%的受访家庭能够以某种方式上网。但52%的家庭表示，接入速度太慢；20%表示，过去一年里曾由于欠费而被断网；23%处于收入中值以下的家庭只能通过手机上网，而21%的受访者表示，“太多人共用一部手机，以至于无法获得他们需要的上网时间。”

These differences affect their children’s ability to get their homework done and to keep up in school. But the effect goes far beyond children. Low- and moderate-income mobile-only families are 25 per cent less likely to use online banking or bill paying than their better connected peers and 14 per cent less likely to apply for a job online. Pew found that one in three job seekers has had trouble entering all the information needed for a job application or submitting the supporting documents required to complete an application.

这些差异影响了他们子女完成作业以及跟上学习进度的能力。但其影响远远超过孩子。与上网条件较好的家庭相比，只能通过手机上网的中低收入家庭使用网上银行或网上付款的几率要低25%，在网上找工作的几率低出14%。皮尤发现，三分之一的求职者不能顺利输入职位申请所需的所有信息，或者不能顺利提交完成申请所需的证明文件。

Bad tools make it hard to acquire good skills. Digital literacy requires far more than simply knowing how to get online. Do you know where to go and how to get there? Do you understand how to protect yourself from spammers?

糟糕的工具使他们很难获得优秀技能。“数字扫盲”的涵义远远不只是知道如何上网。你是否知道去哪里以及如何到达？你是否知道如何保护自己，不上垃圾邮件的当？

Policymakers have a tremendous opportunity if they can gather more fine-grained data about who is not online and why. The Cooney Center study, for instance, found that 44 per cent of immigrant Hispanic parents do not use a computer at work, school or home, even occasionally — compared with 4 per cent of US-born Hispanics. A digital literacy strategy could work with immigrant organisations both to provide access to computers and teach the necessary digital skills.

如果能够收集更多有关谁不上网以及原因的更多精细信息的话，政策制定者将得到一个巨大机遇。例如，库尼中心的研究发现，44%的西语裔移民父母在上班、上学或在家时不用电脑，甚至偶尔也不使用，而在美国出生的西语裔仅有4%不用电脑。“数字扫盲”战略可能对移民组织特别有效，既可以提供上网的电脑，也可以教授必要的数字技能。

It is important to note, however, that being well-off does not always translate into being well connected. Many of the nearly 42 per cent of elderly US citizens who do not use the internet think it is irrelevant to their lives — when it can help enormously in understanding and addressing health problems, paying taxes and navigating government benefit programmes.

然而，值得指出的是：富有并不总是转化为充分利用上网条件。在近42%的不上网的美国老年人中，很多人认为，互联网与他们的生活毫不相干——而实际上，互联网在了解和应对健康问题、缴税以及利用政府福利计划方面极为有用。

Another Pew study found that even when controlling for all other factors, individuals living with chronic diseases and disabilities are significantly less likely to go online. Government and community efforts aimed at the elderly, the ill and the disabled should therefore be focused more on digital access and literacy.

皮尤的另一项研究发现，即便在控制其他所有因素后，患有慢性病和身体有残疾的人士上网的可能性还是要低得多。因此，面向老年人、病人和残疾人的政府和社区举措应当在更大程度上关注数字获取和数字扫盲。

This is not just about helping individual citizens. The EU’s digital strategy has concluded that if more citizens were digitally fluent, Europe could reduce electricity consumption, improve healthcare, better protect cultural heritage and streamline the delivery of government services.

这不仅关乎帮助个人。欧盟数字战略的结论是，如果有更多公民在数字技能上得心应手，欧洲有望降低耗电量、改善医护、更好地保护文化遗产，并使政府服务的提供更为顺畅。

If we thought of the digitally poor and uneducated as a distinct social category intersecting others, we would have a powerful new policy lever applicable to a range of social and economic problems.

如果我们把数字穷人和没有受过教育的人群视为一个与其他人群交集的不同的社会群体，我们将拥有一件新的强大政策工具，可以用来解决很多社会和经济问题。

Unlike physical terrain, which is often hard to conquer, the digital world ought to be available to everyone. While policies aimed at equality of digital opportunity cannot transform physical environments, they can transport individuals to a different place. Digital demographics would help us to identify and classify the population of that virtual world.

与往往难以克服的实体地形不同，数字世界应该属于所有人。尽管旨在让数字机会平等的政策无法转变实体环境，但它们可以让个人达到一个不同的境界。数字人口统计学将帮助我们识别和分类那个虚拟世界的人口。