Policy by the Numbers: Moving beyond the binary of connectivity

Moving beyond the binary of connectivity

Friday, June 5, 2015

Back in April, we shared a post from designer and Internet researcher An Xiao Mina about the "sneakernet." She has a new post on The Society Pages in which she sets out to define a concept she calls the binary of connectivity.

But what exactly is this binary of connectivity? Attendees at my talk asked me to define it, and I’d like to propose a working definition:

The connectivity binary is the view that there is a single mode of connecting to the internet — one person, one device, one always-on subscription.

The connectivity binary is grounded in a Western, urban, middle class mode of connectivity; this mode of connecting is seen as the penultimate realization of our relationship to the internet and communications technologies. Thinking in a binary way renders other modes of access invisible, both to makers and influencers on the internet and to advertising engines and big data, and it limits our understanding of the internet and its global impact.

I can imagine at least two axes of a connectivity spectrum: single vs. shared usage, and continuous vs. intermittent access. For many readers of Cyborgology, single usage, continuous access to the web is likely the norm. The most extreme example of this might be iconized in the now infamous image of Robert Scoble wearing Google Glass in the shower–we are always connected, always getting feeds of data our way.

Here’s how other sections of those axes might map to practices I’ve observed in different parts of the world. Imagine these at differing degrees away from the center of a matrix:

Shared Usage, Continuous Access: I saved up to buy a laptop with a USB stick that my family of four can use. We take turns using it, and our connection is pretty stable.

Single, Intermittent: I have a low-cost Chinese feature phone (maybe a Xiaomi), and I pay a few dollars each month for 10 MB of access. I keep my data plan off most of time.

Shared, Intermittent: I walk all day to visit an internet cafe once every few months to check my Facebook account, listen to music on YouTube and practice my typing skills. I don’t own a computer myself.

For the purposes of simplicity, I’m assuming that we’re talking about devices that have one connection. But, of course, some devices have multiple connections (think of a phone with multiple SIMs) and some connections have multiple devices (think of roommates sharing a wifi router).

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Policy by the Numbers

Moving beyond the binary of connectivity

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