Scoble wants the kids of the world to have iPhones
Jun 27th, 2008 | By Steven Hodson | Category: The Social Web, The Web
Recently Robert Scoble has had the pleasure to be hobnobbing with political types in Washington DC and as result has come up with some sort of technological agenda for the US. As interesting as the three points are that he outlined on Twitter and showed up in my FriendFeed stream the second one shows how totally out of touch that he and the whole early adopter crowd are when it comes to technology and the real world.
In his second point he suggests that “We need to move away from a computer for every kid and toward an iPhone-level device for every kid”. Ummm Robert what fucking drugs are you on man because I want some of what you are taking. I mean you can’t seriously be suggesting that every kid in the US be handed over an iPhone – c’mon get a grip on some reality here. I am sure that Steve Jobs would just be salivating like a crazy bugger at the thought of it and the service providers would be getting woodies at the very thought of all that cash flowing their way but I’m sorry – you’ve gone off the deep end on this one.
You might like to think that “We are also 15 years away from having every kid have a portable Internet-enabled device like an iPhone” but the chances are the only thing we will be experiencing in 15 years is a greater technological divide in which our children will be on two opposite sides of the chasm – those with access and those without.
The idea that handing each and every child something resembling an iPhone or some such other connected mobile device might be all noble and such but you obviously haven’t been out in and amongst the inner city kids, or the rural kids or the homeless children lately. When you have parents that are struggling daily even to maintain a roof over those children’s heads or food in their bellies the idea of a mobile phone magically appearing in their hands is ludicrous at best.
As it is our children are proving daily how much a mockery the whole No child left behind policy really is and if you don’t believe that I know a couple of teachers who would be more than willingly to you the reality of the joke. Even taking the logistics of such an idea into account who is going to pay for all those mobile phones and who is going to pay for all that access? Is it going to be government sponsored and it is what strings are going to be attach
ed? Are we going to make it easier to censor what our children see and learn via this new form of education tool?
Robert you might think that giving each child a mobile phone is the answer but the fact is it raises too many questions that need to be answered first. You might think that an iPhone in every backpack will change the world and it might but it won’t be in the way you envision it. You might have spent the past week in the halls of power of the Beltway but I think it is time that you spend some time in the ghettos. It is time that you wander the halls of inner city schools. It is time for you to learn that those new friends of yours in the Beltway don’t give a shit about anything that won’t earn them votes and line the pockets of their corporate backers.
Sorry Robert but it is statements like this that just reaffirm the real world how out of touch the technology world really is.
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