#milentry4

In this generation, technology became part of people’s daily lives, including in the media world. Technology such as gadgets, internet, and computers can help us gather information easily and efficiently. Most schools, facilities, and even at home use technologies for either research, work, and entertainment purposes. But not all people can fully understand the uses of technologies due to lack of knowledge and equipment provided. It’s called Digital Divide. Digital Divide means the gap between those who benefit from the Digital Age and those who do not, in other words, the idea of “being left behind”. Especially in this pandemic crisis, not all people can take advantage of the technologies. Families, workers, and students may sometimes cannot keep up with the latest trend in the Digital Age due to perhaps, lack of funds to purchase latest and up-to-date technologies because they might have low money income or, lack of knowledge because they don’t think it’s necessary to bought some.

Understanding the Relevance of Information and News Literacy in the Midst of Social Era

Information and News are our foundation these days. It is our eyes, ears, and our senses as whole in this time of uncertainty and complexity of society. As we progress, extend, and step ahead to new innovations, our commitment is fastened to our literacy as users of the medium. Information and News Literacy are linked to the Social Era as it needs collective understanding and endeavor to be illuminated and to widen its influence. Information and News created a big change in our entity. As a fundamental aspect of society, information and news play a part in the socialization of folks. They are able to share their perception and position of principles about information or news on the occurrence of schemes and contingency. Information and News incorporates modernism and embraces the Social Age as it widens the commitment of people's competence and creates a chamber where they can empower and utilize literacy.

As we step ahead to our future, being literate is the new norm and standard. Knowing how to evaluate and filter false information is the best aspect that should be obtained. Being conscious about the typology of media literacy should be retained by media users as an avenue to acquire literacy in the media. First and foremost, media literacy helps students become wiser consumers of media as well as responsible producers of their own media. Along those same lines, teaching media literacy helps to foster critical thinking in students. Media literacy education is a key in ensuring that individuals can find the real facts among all of the half truths, articles or information being shared online and beyond, especially when it is literally a matter of life or death. As we are seeing now, media literacy is not only a scheme of education, it can also be a matter of public safety. You can always access everything you want in just one click. We should always remember that everything we do has a consequence whether it is good or not, be responsible enough to handle things with care and as a literate individual. Illuminating ourselves to the relevance of information and news literacy to the social era is vital. As our technology and innovations take place, our literacy must remain in whatever era. We might age and got old but our literacy will remain and should influence the younger generation.

(Photo Credits: The Kirkwood Call)

G12 HUMSS 7 ( GROUP 4 )

Group Members:

Kent Joash Escabarte

Faith Xyrelle H. Paderanga

Robert Mantilla

Hector Pitogo

The digital divide is divided into two worlds: those with internet access and those without. It is a widening gap between the underprivileged and privileged members of society that has been a crucial part of our lives in the new normal, exacerbated by geographical barriers, a lack of willingness to use technology, a lack of physical access to technology, and digital illiteracy. Technology has become increasingly important in our lives, especially in this new world we live in, and this has been a problem since then. Lack of communication and isolation are some of the implications of the Digital Divide. People in rural locations with limited access to the internet, or who do not have access at all, feel it to be a barrier to their education and knowledge. It also underlines how inequality is caused by social disparities and gender discrimination. It affects everyone, but the effects are felt more intensely in places where privilege does not extend.

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced us into a whole new perspective of life. Our lives took a turn and a ‘new normal’ was implemented that is very different and far from what all of us are used to. The face-to-face way of work, education, and services are now dependent on online space and virtual meets. Now, almost two years into the ‘new normal’ of pandemic life, students are slowly getting adjusted by the way of learning online and passing requirements with the help of their phones and gadgets. We’re accustomed to presenting our phones to the security guards for them to snap a QR code before entering a mall, shop, or any market. Video calls like Zoom and Google Meet have become a standard feature of the workday. For those of us who already regularly shopped, banked, studied, and worked via the Internet, it was easy to adapt to telehealth appointments with doctors and video calls with friends and family. But what about those people who are not privileged enough to own updated and latest gadgets for these kinds of situations? What about those who have slow internet connections that are way worse than we’d ever imagined? What about those who had nothing at all?

The digital divide has brought several challenges in society. And with the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic, this issue continued to widen than it ever had before, increasing the hardships of many. For students to be able to learn from lessons discussed and for teachers to be able to teach students virtually, technology plays a very important role. Because of the digital divide, especially right now in the new normal, it feels like education is so hard to reach for the students because of the lack of access to the right technology. It is so hard to communicate with teachers and fellow classmates, and difficult to pass homework, activities, and projects. The gap had a big impact on the educational process because some students have access to the latest technology whereas the others who are not fortunate, who are usually in small towns, have to rely on outdated equipment and dial-up modems. Because there are rules we had to follow in terms of the pandemic policy and procedures, sadly, those kinds of students can’t go to cities to have better net connections and some just cannot instantly buy updated/latest phones because of financial problems. It is really challenging for everyone, not just to students, but also to teachers, other employees, and to employers. We just have to be understanding and considerate. No one is to be blamed because this crisis is definitely out of one's control.

A digital divide, which hinders students from doing schoolwork at home due to the absence of internet and physical hardware, is the main enabler of such gaps among education systems. People set out to build an understanding of data from multiple sources, which spotlight the digital divide, its causes, and the inferiority of previous ones to bridge it. The COVID-19 crisis proved that the availability of computers and technology has now become essential to children's opportunity to reach education, reinforcing the necessary use for a nationwide effort to contain such gaps and get it over with. Though if students have devices at home, technical problems can cause the software to wreck and the internet to go down. Besides that, parents and students who aren't good with technology may find it difficult to learn, given the lack of access to technology and software. All of us didn't expect the coming of the COVID-19 virus. All of us experience the adjustments with the new normal this pandemic did. As it continues, we had to deal with the new way of learning in school, such as having online classes and modular. For the past few years, technologies were not always used, and we are only using those for research, entertainment, and communication with other people. But suddenly, we are needed to deal with and adapt to the new normal where we have to be more dependent on the internet than usual.

 A digital divide, which hinders students from doing schoolwork at home due to the absence of internet as well as physical hardware, is indeed the main enabler of such gaps among education systems. People set out to build an understanding of data from multiple sources which put a spotlight on the digital divide, its causes, and also the inferiority of previous ones to bridge it. The COVID-19 crisis proved that the availability of computers and technology has now become essential to children's opportunity to reach education, reinforcing the vital use for a nationwide effort to contain such gaps and get it over with. Though if students have devices at home, technical problems can cause the software to wreck as well as the internet to go down. Besides that, parents and students who aren't good with technology may find it difficult to learn given the lack of access to technology and software. All of us didn’t expect the coming of the COVID-19 virus. All of us experience the adjustments with the new normal this pandemic did. As it continues, we really had to deal with the new way of learning in school such as having online classes and modular. For the past few years, technologies were not always used, we are only using those  for research, entertainment, and communication to other people. But suddenly, we are needed to deal and adapt to the new normal where we have to be more dependent on the internet than usual. 

The digital divide is divided into two worlds: those with internet access and those without. It is a widening gap between the underprivileged and privileged members of society that has been a crucial part of our lives in the new normal, exacerbated by geographical barriers, a lack of willingness to use technology, a lack of physical access to technology, and digital illiteracy. Technology has become increasingly important in our lives, especially in this new world we live in, and this has been a problem since then. Lack of communication and isolation are some of the implications of the Digital Divide. People in rural locations with limited access to the internet, or who do not have access at all, feel it to be a barrier to their education and knowledge. It also underlines how inequality is caused by social disparities and gender discrimination. It affects everyone, but the effects are felt more intensely in places where privilege does not extend.