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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
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Thursday April 05 2018, @03:55PM (10 children)
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)
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
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)
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".
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)
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 The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 06 2018, @11:11AM
What, precisely, has that got to do with the price of feet in China? You're the only one talking about rural vs. urban.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday April 06 2018, @12:41AM (3 children)
Many on the east coast are dickheads too
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Touché) by NotSanguine on Friday April 06 2018, @01:54AM
Thank you! It's nice to be appreciated every once in a while.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 06 2018, @02:30AM (1 child)
S'true but they don't tell you they're being dickheads for your own good. They're honest dickheads.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday April 06 2018, @04:56PM
See third post in the thread, which this whole thing dangles from.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.