I've just returned from a trip to Oklahoma City with Miss America, Lauren Nelson. We visited Capitol Hill Elementary School, the largest school in the city and certainly one of the less affluent. I had the pleasure of delivering Symantec's financial contribution to the D.A.R.E. officers at Capitol Hill. D.A.R.E. officers are going to add cybersafety lessons to their already successful anti-drug efforts. They are going to use the IKeepSafe Coalition's Faux Paw curriculum, which is getting such great reviews at the schools who already use this creative, easy-to-understand cartoon cat to teach a serious lesson about staying away from online strangers.
I often ask children at the schools I visit about their computer use. And this school was pretty typical - almost every child has an Internet-connected computer in their home and they are online almost every day. This show of hands even surprised the officers, who were of the mind that children in lower-income homes probably didn't have their own computers. Even if their computer is several years old and was a hand-me-down from a relative or public agency, these kids have some way of getting online with regularity.
It reminds me of a story a friend told of visiting a poor family in their Beijing apartment. Three generations were living in one large room with a shared toilet down the hall. Bed mats were rolled up in one corner, another had a rudimentary cooking set-up. And in another corner, almost set up as a shrine, was a new computer with monitor and high-speed Internet access. The primary user was the only child of this home. The computer and connection were the single most significant investment in the home and the parents reasoned it would give their child a necessary connection to the greater world and a better life. If this story surprises you, perhaps it's time to read Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat".