Technology and Inequality
The availability and utilization of technology by a person in our society all depends on the choices that person has made in their lifetime as those choices relate to their level of education, skill, and their location. Due to the way our economy is structured there is a high demand for wealth and in order to achieve that wealth a person must generally be well educated through college, have a specific skills set in their area of interest or occupation, and be in the right place at the right time in order to benefit from the developments of technology in the workplace. Technological achievements also only help those who can afford to get them, and in places like Africa, India, and so forth many people cannot afford to get them and this causes them to stay unequal with those who can.
Education is a big factor when it comes to how technology and inequality are directly related. It is proven that a person who graduates high school and goes on to college immediately to pursue a career is more likely to get the benefits of technology than a person who drops out of high school and gets a minimum wage job. Through different levels of education a person learns specific skills needed to succeed which a person who has no education would have a hard time of achieving. The jobs that require skills are the ones that mainly use technology and their employees benefit from that, while minimum wage jobs don’t need as much technology to be operated and their employees lose such benefits like gaining technological experience. Once all the education and skills have been acquired then a person must be able to find out where those specific skills are needed and the market must have a demand for those skills in order for the person to benefit. People who haven’t acquired any education or skills aren’t in the position to benefit from any kind of technology since they aren’t on an equal playing field with those who have and will always be unequal.
