Technophobia is the fear of technology, and it seems to be more prevalent than you might imagine in the case of the internet. The Internet Innovation Alliance pointed out these two stories to us.
First, In January of this year, the town of Glastonbury, England protested against receiving a Wi-Fi network after some residents blamed it for dizziness, headaches, and other ailments. In fact, an ONLINE petition lists “headaches, dizziness, nausea, severe tiredness, brain fog, disorientation and loss of appetite, loss of balance, inability to concentrate, loss of creativity”. At least we can tell they’re not total Luddites, they’ll still go online as long as it’s not wireless.
Then, just this week, a story came out of Canada about a garlic farmer in Victoria Harbour, Nova Scotia, who is trying to stop the village from receiving high-speed Internet.
Lenny Levine, who has been planting and harvesting garlic by hand on his Annapolis Valley land since the 1970s, is afraid his organic crop could be irradiated if a microwave tower for wireless high-speed internet access is built a few hundred meters from his farm. It’s expected that the council’s decision will be overturned because the radiation from the internet tower is 60,000 times lower than the government’s accepted limits for organic farms. A petition in support of the high speed internet tower was signed by the majority of householders in the area, but in the meantime, the people of Victoria Harbour are stuck with dial-up internet.
As The Internet Innovation Alliance points out, these protests highlight the need for education when it comes to rolling out technology. Research needs to be done to reassure people. “After all, what’s the point of providing access if people don’t want — or are scared to — use it?”
Tags: High Speed Internet, Wi-Fi, Wireless High Speed Internet