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posted by chromas on Thursday April 05 2018, @10:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the less-is-more,-more-or-less dept.

Submitted via IRC for fyngyrz

When people hear "Appalachia," stereotypes and even slurs often immediately jump to mind, words like "backwards," "ignorant," "hillbilly" or "yokel." But Appalachian attitudes about technology's role in daily life are extremely sophisticated—and turn out to be both insightful and useful in a technology-centric society.

[...] In a recent study, my colleagues and I used focus groups and interviews to explore how people use technology in rural Appalachia. These open-ended methods allow participants to discuss their experiences and opinions in their own terms. For instance, most technology surveys don't ask people why they don't own the latest phone or computer—they just assume people would if they could.

Those studies miss key insights our research was able to identify and explore. When we gave people a chance to tell their own stories about technology, we most often heard about two themes.

The first, which we called "resistance," appeared in people's doubts about the concept that more technology is always better. They also carefully considered whether the potential usefulness of new technologies was worth the privacy sacrifices inherently required to use them.

People also described their intentional choices about how much technology to use and for what purposes—as well as intentional choices not to use technology in some situations. We called this theme "navigation."

Source: https://theconversation.com/resisting-technology-appalachian-style-94245


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  • (Score: 0, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 05 2018, @11:09AM (19 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday April 05 2018, @11:09AM (#662865) Homepage Journal

    Yeah, it doesn't speak to national reality so much as to the extremely urban, largely west coast prejudices of the people doing the study. They genuinely do not understand that most people in the nation do not live either in major cities or on the west coast. For that matter, people who do live in major urban centers on the west coast don't even necessarily want every shiny new tech bauble that comes along.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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  • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @11:28AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @11:28AM (#662871)

    Thanks for the rant, but you obviously don't know what I was talking about nor did you click the link. I thought that the link going to "political dictionary" is hint enough that the phrase shouldn't be taken literally, but since I was wrong, I'll quote it here:

    hiking the Appalachian Trail

    Euphemism for a politician who claims to be doing one thing but in reality went to meet with his mistress.

    The term was coined after South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) went missing in 2009, claiming that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when in reality he was in Argentina with his mistress.

    And to address the rant itself, yeah, the people don't understand that most people in the nation do not live either in major cities or on the west coast. In fact, less than a quarter [census.gov] of US population lives in the 10 largest cities, and only an 80% minority [census.gov] lives in urban areas, with the 20% majority being in rural areas.

    In other words, TMB, you're talking baseless, misleading shit again.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @11:43AM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @11:43AM (#662874)

      and only an 80% minority lives in urban areas, with the 20% majority being in rural areas.

      You'll just get a reply complaining that "urban area" is too broadly defined, which may have some merit to it.

      https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/ [citylab.com]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @12:01PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @12:01PM (#662882)

        True. But even if we limit the definition of "urban" to cities with 50,000+ people, that still covers ~70% of US population.

        • (Score: 1, Redundant) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 05 2018, @12:57PM (2 children)

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday April 05 2018, @12:57PM (#662894) Homepage Journal

          There's a world of difference between a city with 50K people and one with several million. You should get out more.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @04:20PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @04:20PM (#662993)

            There is a world of difference between a town of 50k and a rural area. You should be more precise in your argument, and avoid using ad hominems, as they are a logical fallacy. The defined terminology supports the argument against you. Perhaps you should rephrase your argument.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 05 2018, @09:28PM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday April 05 2018, @09:28PM (#663113) Homepage Journal

              My argument is that the defined terminology is poorly defined. The defined terminology cannot logically be used to refute that argument. Logical support of its methodology could but that's not what you've attempted because you know it can't be done.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @11:50AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @11:50AM (#662879)

      The teacher walked up in front of the classroom. "Alright, class, let's begin today's lesson." he said jubilantly. The young children were all nervous, given that it was the first day of school after a long summer break. The teacher planned to show each student a close, hands-on demonstration of the subject matter so that they could comprehend it in its entirety, and as such, he walked up to a girl sitting in the front row to begin his lesson in earnest.

      The teacher reached the first student and thoroughly taught her the subject matter. After he was done with his demonstration, he walked to the next student. And then the next. And then the next. By this time, the students would begin screaming whenever he walked towards another amongst them. The most likely reason for this screaming was that they were excited about the lesson; that was the conclusion the teacher had arrived at, and the one that pleased him the most. The students' eagerness to learn both satisfied the man and made him profoundly energetic. He efficiently did his demonstration for all 26 students. The lesson had concluded just in time for the bell to ring.

      "Alright, class, the lesson is over. I hope you all understand the topic completely now. If you have any questions, you can come see me again at any time. You are dismissed." the teacher said, while wearing an angelic smile on his face. The man then removed the barricade in front of the door and departed. The students neither said anything nor moved even an inch. Silence permeated the room. Impenetrable silence.

      Naked and unmoving, the children slowly rotted away before they were inevitably discarded. Indeed, these students fully understood men's rights.

    • (Score: 1) by DeVilla on Friday April 06 2018, @03:32AM

      by DeVilla (5354) on Friday April 06 2018, @03:32AM (#663255)

      Based on that, I live in an "urban cluster". We're a small town (but we call it a city) that you can cross on bike in under 10 minutes. If you stand on the right hill you can probably see all the grain elevators in town at once. Not sure you'd see all the water towers from any one place. One of them is kinda squat and behind a tree covered hill by the highway.

      But hey, I'm one of 80% of the urbanites in the nation. Guess we need a Starbucks now.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:55PM (10 children)

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:55PM (#662979) Homepage Journal

    Yeah, it doesn't speak to national reality so much as to the extremely urban, largely west coast prejudices of the people doing the study. They genuinely do not understand that most people in the nation do not live either in major cities or on the west coast. For that matter, people who do live in major urban centers on the west coast don't even necessarily want every shiny new tech bauble that comes along.

    While "hillbilly" jokes may inform the author of TNSFA (a piece of clickbait crap so bad the author didn't even put their name in a byline), the paper referenced [ijoc.org] appears to be an actual attempt to understand how lower income, more rural people choose to use (and not use) technology.

    In many respects, the paper's abstract is rather laudatory of such folks. As such, your reference to prejudices are actually much better directed at the author(s) of TFA, not the authors of the paper.

    What's more, according to the US Census Bureau [census.gov], nearly 2/3 (~63%) of US residents live in cities so, in fact, most people *do* live in cities.

    Not sure why there's all this hate for the west coast (I don't want to live there, but there are some really nice places there -- as well as all around the US -- which has quite a few places that are really nice), as there are assholes *everywhere*

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 05 2018, @04:10PM (5 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday April 05 2018, @04:10PM (#662989) Homepage Journal

      Fair nuff on the directing.

      Again, there's a world of difference between a city of 50K and a city of millions. The lifestyle isn't remotely similar, so they have no business being lumped together.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Thursday April 05 2018, @04:46PM

        by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday April 05 2018, @04:46PM (#663000) Homepage Journal

        Again, there's a world of difference between a city of 50K and a city of millions. The lifestyle isn't remotely similar, so they have no business being lumped together.

        That's certainly a reasonable assumption, and is backed up by my own observations WRT places around the US that I've lived/worked/visited.

        However, I would point out that more than half of the US population lives in metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 residents [wikipedia.org]. The cities around which all these people live are pretty big (the smallest metro area > 1,000,000 people is around Tucson, AZ with a population of ~520,000), so the statement that most folks live in urban metropolitan areas (for various definitions of the word "urban") is a correct one, without getting down to cities of 50,000 or even 250,000.

        That's not a dig at small towns/rural areas, it's just where people live. Most people in those metro areas live in suburban areas convenient to relatively large cities where there's a lot of economic activity, as has been the case ever since cars (and highways) became ubiquitous.

        --
        No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday April 06 2018, @01:04AM (3 children)

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 06 2018, @01:04AM (#663215) Journal

        If you divide the turf into urban and rural, then a city of 50,000 counts as urban. If you want to claim there's a big difference between it and a megalopolis, I'll agree, but that's not what's being asserted in the summary or in the early parts of the discussion.

        P.S.: Different 50,000 cities are more different than are different megalopolises. But they're still all urban. So is a city of 25,000. In fact, I'd go so far as to call a town of 10,000 more urban than rural...and I've lived in both.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 06 2018, @02:29AM (2 children)

          Reread the thread. I didn't say urban vs rural. I said "extremely urban" and "major cities".

          I'd go so far as to call a town of 10,000 more urban than rural...and I've lived in both.

          As have I and I can say without hesitation that this is so far from true it isn't even laughable anymore. If you're not seeing it, you don't see the real differences between urbanites and non-urbanites to begin with.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday April 06 2018, @06:06AM (1 child)

            by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 06 2018, @06:06AM (#663290) Journal

            Rural is outside of town, not within town, even a small one.

            --
            Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday April 06 2018, @12:41AM (3 children)

      by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Friday April 06 2018, @12:41AM (#663207) Homepage Journal

      Many on the east coast are dickheads too

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      Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]