The quote featured in the title of this post comes from an article I found on MSNBC.com that resonated with me and got me thinking about, you guessed it, the role and impact of the internet on the world. It poses the question "Is internet access a human right?" At first, I thought this to be a rather overly dramatic question to ask, but as I read the article I began to give it more consideration.
I teach social studies. In my 9th grade course, the first month and a half is dedicated to the study of culture and all of its sources, components, and influences. The concept of values and beliefs is a central part of our studies. Along with that comes the study of the idea of laws, which reflect the values and beliefs of a people. In that context, pondering whether access to the internet is a human right is perhaps more reasonable. Freedom of expression is a right that is so cherished among Americans. As I teach about culture, students often find this freedom to be the most defining of all of our Constitutional freedoms. The internet has provided civilizations avenues for communication in unprecendented ways. "According to the BBC World Service survey, 79 percent of the 27,000 respondents, across 26 countries world wide, do think access to the Internet is a fundamental right. Most Americans feel that it is, too." This quote from the article makes a convincing point.
In the psychology course I teach, the effects of social isolation or ostracism in prisons was a recent topic of discussion and study. The overall mental health of these prisoners suffered when they were isolated from the general prison population for 22 and 1/2 hours a day. Human rights activists cite this fact as a reason to end this type of punishment. In relation to the internet, could permitting restricted internet use in a supervised manner help address this issue? Just a thought. I have not considered the issue thoroughly enough to have a solid opinion.
