Jenna Wortham Quotes

Five or ten years ago, when it was clear the Internet was becoming a mainstream phenomenon, it was equally clear that a lot of people were being left out and could be left behind.

We're building what I call 'software apartheid.' We're in the process of creating a divided society: those who can use technology on one side, and those who can't on the other. And it happens to divide neatly along economic lines.

I don't even want to guess at what computer literacy might do to children, except to say that if cyberspace is considered a place, then there are people who are already in it and people who are not in it.

I'm not against the virtual world; it's fascinating, but I don't like the way they try to impose it on us. It's a thing imposed by rich countries.

I like computers. I like the Internet. It's a tool that can be used. But don't be misled into thinking that these technologies are anything other than aspects of a degenerate economic system.

We demonstrated that the Web had failed instead of served humanity, as it was supposed to have done, and failed in many places. [The Web] has ended up producing—with no deliberate action of the people who designed the platform—a large-scale emergent phenomenon which is anti-human.

The Internet has not become the great leveller that it was once thought it could be.

I think technology is spreading, and I think one's experience of technology is going to relate increasingly to class - not so much to country.

Technology produces a new division of haves and have nots.

If you look at all the technology we're interconnected with every day, all this complex technology that connects humanity, it actually doesn't connect us.

The Internet was supposed to bring people together, but it's created big divisions.

I think there's a gigantic generation gap in terms of how people understand the Internet and how much they think technology is an important factor in social change.

The smug complacency of technology adverts disguises a pretty mixed picture, with too many people not connected, too many passive users of technologies designed for interactive, and far too much talk about empowerment but far too little action to make it happen.

The internet was supposed to homogenize everyone by connecting us all. Instead what it's allowed is silos of interest.

I don't even have my own computer.

It used to be that the only ones with access to cutting-edge technology were top government labs, big companies and the ultra-rich. It was simply too expensive for the rest of us to afford.

No matter how much it's growing, the Internet still is a pretty specific demographic. It doesn't necessarily represent the general populace.

As we develop and get quicker with technology in America, it's like we're downgrading if you look at the investment in education... that's the thing that worries me.

Technologies are never neutral, and some are hurtful.

There are massive efforts on the part of the internet's corporate owners to try to direct it to become a technique of marginalisation and control.

I proudly tell people, 'I have no computer,' so as not to be ashamed of having no computer.

One tech-related concern with religion is that it appears to be a positive feedback loop to the accelerating rich-poor gap, as the disenfranchised opt out of modernity.

Technology has transformed how we live, learn and work, but not everyone has been able to participate in these developments.

In many ways, the Internet is about diversification, and yet, in the wrong hands, the digital world can use those very examples to reinforce the narrowest of perspectives.

We thought the Internet would enlighten everyone, but it's given everyone access to more ignorance, and given ignorant people an opportunity to organize themselves and congregate.