Right on! :-) Stephen Snow wrote: > So..some concrete things: > > --In Alaska, people are using satellites and computers to get counseling in > remote villages. Is this additive? Is it helpful? Don't know. No data. Yet. > > --Here in North Carolina, there is a multi-node telepsychiatry initiative; > T1s to rural sites to bring diagnostic capability to areas where mental > health care is largely nonexistent. Helpful? I don't have data to say one > way or another. The equipment is expensive and the projects cost a lot to > mount and sustain. Would it be cheaper/better to entice a psychiatrist to do > this in person, even as a circuit-rider? Well, I don't know! IF you could > find one willing, and IF you could pay him/her enough to make it worth their > while...maybe. > > --Pew surveys suggest that upwards of 150 million people use the web to get > health information every year...mainly people in the U.S. Is this additive? > What is the quality of the information they reach, and how do they know it > is actually the right information? Would they be better served going to a > doctor? Or picking up a book? > > So there are these questions about, even on a cost-benefit basis, if > internet-mediated communication and information is worth it. To those of us > who are early adopters -- and that might be considered many of those on this > list -- we might find a lot of utility in the web. But we have grown with > the internet and the web and have an extended learning curve. > > Information on the web is inadequately aggregated and poorly arranged and > not well-maintained. There is useful stuff there, but I don't think anything > is served by a gee-whiz approach to the web; I can't say that I *know* this, > but I do *think* that we have a long way to go before the web is really > useful to a big number of people. Now, 20% of 6 billions *is* a lot of > people, and they get some functionality out of all of this (probably mostly > email!) but it is a far cry from Dave Hughes's vision of wiring the planet. > We are still too west-focused, in information, usage and language to have > "big" usefulness...and then there are larger issues about the narrowing of > interests and parochializing thought through the vertical nature of the > internet....So lots of questions. Health and the digital divide is right in > there. > Steve Snow > [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
-- Taran Rampersad Presently in: San Fernando, Trinidad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.knowprose.com http://www.your2ndplace.com Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/knowprose/ "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo "The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine." - Nikola Tesla _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
