> > `Digital divide' growing wider > Graph of report results > BY DAVID PLOTNIKOFF > Mercury News Staff Writer > > http://www.sjmercury.com/business/tech/docs/net072898.htm > According to the study, obtained Monday by the Mercury News, blacks and > Hispanics overall are falling farther behind whites in computer ownership. > (Asian-American households were not broken out in the study.) The gap > between high-income and low-income households in computer ownership also has > widened. I believe part of it, a LARGE part of it, is an attitude difference. Not everyone sees information as useful. You laugh! But it is true. Look at human endeavors. Look at people themselves. A vast group of people just don't see the internet as important. They won't see it as important till they can drive to work over it, till they see the dollars. Many of them have the attitude of "Show me the money first". And refuse to invest in personal infrastructure. How many people go to libraries on a monthly basis? How many subscribe to the local newspaper? Many don't care. The gulf between the rich and poor is an attitude gulf. Those who rise, believe their efforts have value and can change their status. Most of those who sink, are those who believe they are oppressed and take no steps to improve their knowledge base, and many of those put their investments into ego and "self esteem" boosting purchases. (Sure, there are LOTS of reasons for sinking. One really fast one is personal health crisis. But even there, it is those who believe that their own efforts can make a difference, those who do not blindly accept everything the doctors say, who recover faster and to a far greater degree.) Take two friends of mine, both past middle age, both roughly the same income bracket. Both lost their jobs during the recession. One gave up and coasted for some three years, convinced nothing would work. Another branched out into various other fields, not too successfully, but had some income, though limited, for five years before he landed another really good high tech project. As for me, whenever I finished a project, I picked up the phone, calling fifty to slightly over a hundred companies a day. I worked every year during the recession. The difference was not so much ability, for the two friends had far more ability and experience than I. The difference was Attitude! If you have the attitude that what you know and what you do will make a difference, then you will acquire tools that help you learn and grow. Yes, you will stumble, blow lots of dollars on things that don't pan out, etc. But some things WILL pan out and generate income. All three of us had computers. I bought a 486 before the others, I was on the net before the others, I was on the web before the others. (I am also younger than the others...) I wasted far more money on ultimately less than useful software tools, computers, information, and such than the others did. And earned more income, because I learned more about the technology from my successes and mistakes. I did not give up. Attitude. If you believe you can succeed, you will likely improve your status; maybe not all the way to a roaring success, but certainly a lot more than those who sit there and don't try because they are "too old", "too inexperienced", or "oppressed". What our schools don't teach, is to take the initiative, to be entrepreneurial, to look at money as a reward for helping others. Why? Because kids like that are uncontrollable! And the Number One thing schools want, is to convert kids into controllable entities they can count, process, and predict. Nice droids who will sit quietly and do what they are told... Remember, Thomas Edison was "too addled" to attend school. His brand of insanity was to keep on experimenting with things. That gave us the electric bulb, phonograph, movies, and a whole range of other stuff. We should produce more kids addled in that manner! [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------- Every mouse click, a Vote --------------- ------ Do they vote For, or Against your pages? ------- ------------------------------------------------------- Hit and Link Analysis: http://www.mall-net.com/webcons/ ------------------------------------------------------- Web Imagineering -- Analysis, Architecture, Automation, Advanced CGI-BIN Programming, and Content Development. <A HREF="http://www.mall-net.com"> www.Mall-Net.com</A> * Anti-Spam FAQ: http://www.mall-net.com/spamfaq.html ____________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Join The Web Consultants Association : Register on our web site Now Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants If you lose the instructions All subscription/unsubscribing can be done directly from our website for all our lists. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
