The Digital Divide and Its Impact on Society
The digital divide is basically the outlook on how technological advancement will be of great benefit to the society and at the same time represents challenges. This digital divide matters because it will directly affect prosperity and peace in the future world.
Functionalism Theory
Functionalism theory is one of the theories that try to explain this digital divide. According to the functionalist theory, a change poses a challenge to the maintenance of the social system and as such technological changes can result in conflict in the society. For instance, technology can make drivers to text while driving which may result in many accidents as a result of distracted driving. Cyclical theory backs up this stance by presenting that society traverses through seasons which present new advancements in technology and their respective challenges. Thus, the future outlook on the world presents both good quality of life and challenges (Durkin Carothers, 2015).
The Evolutionary Theory
However, the evolutionary theory perceives technological change as a progress for a better society. In fact, it sees the society as continuously moving ahead and improving in many aspects. Therefore, with more technological advancements, the better the society will be. Nonetheless, this advancement in technology will be able to benefit those societies who can fit and the less societies won't be in a position of adopting the advancements and this definitely will cause strife, conflict, and competition for survival. This postulation is actually in line with the proposition of conflict theory which predicts advancement of technologically based on self-interests that will benefit a section of the society while others will be exploited economically (Durkin Carothers, 2015). For prosperity and peace to result, there is a need for the society to eliminate societal stratification so that all members will benefit from the social changes.
Reference
Durkin, K. F., " Carothers, R. M. (2015). Sociology: Beyond common sense [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/
