So as I outlined in my introductory post one of my academic areas is the digital divide. I won’t be introducing it here but I suggest you consult Wikipedia if you have questions. Anyway, one of the web resources I consult occasionally that has to do with this area is the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). I was running around their broadband usage and access statistics pages and happened upon a chart that stood out. They actually have ratings by country based on how many bot-infected (virused) computers they have. It’s not really a common dimension people think about when it comes to digital divide but as a technician I know just how horribly slow and painful a bot-infected, spyware ridden, student owned Celeron laptop can be. If you think you might be able to use the internet, think again. Remember that episode of Futurama where they have the big fight with ads? Yeah, exactly. Okay admittedly many of these systems might have dormant or non-invasive digital critters shacking up on the hard drive but it’s still rather unfortunate. I can say I’m not so surprised Poland takes the cake for most infested but where did this Spain come from? And Portugal? Do they have more than 10 people?

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about who has the most access, home computers, fast connections, etc… generally the rich Northern European countries and Japan/Korea own house. The US, while it has the largest sheer number of internet users, still stands somewhere near the middle.

I find that one of the coolest questions you can ask someone is “Who are you?”
Some people define who they are by their studies, their jobs, their friends, their physical characteristics, or perhaps just their simple name. Our identities are complicated and always changing – yet static in some sense.
So who am I?
I am a loving, passionate individual who yearns to make a difference in the world – in the lives of others as well as my own. Intensity and enthusiasm flows through my veins. I find meaning and value in creating, connecting, and helping people. I see leadership as service, and take point often – I conspire to inspire. I’m also active and assertive – in more than one sense. I’m a thinker, a dreamer, and still yet a realist with a pinch of curiosity.
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So poetic hogwash aside, here’s what I tell the hob-nobs in academe:

Jeff Ginger is a second year graduate student studying sociology and library & information science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He attended UIUC for his undergraduate career as well where he fostered his love for sociology and hatred for computer science. He comes from a Science and Technology Studies (STS) disciplinary background (the insurgents of soc really), a hefty helping of race/ethnicity studies (with intergroup dialogue too!), and is perhaps most famous for his Masters Paper and other research on Facebook.com. His current studies revolve around social & community informatics, battling the digital divide, and human-computer interactions (HCI) and his ultimate PhD work will be some blend of the three.

Jeff also occasionally makes websites, pretends to be an artist, records fun noises, and likes to teach. You can shoot harpoons at his Hindenburg-esq ego here.