About this episode
The Liat Show is rebuilding our world through storytelling, powered by readers. To receive new posts first and support my work, join as a free or paid subscriber and stay ahead of the next chapter before the door closes.Current Time.Compulsory education became common in many countries at the beginning of the 20th century. This global initiative aimed to reduce social disparity and balance the educational differences between rural and urban areas. Modern society structured the school system and curriculum based on what was required at the time, using the knowledge and resources available then.Fast forward to today, about a century later, and this world is entirely different from what it was. Innovation and technological developments have transformed our lives beyond recognition. Within a century, technological progress has exceeded any other revolution in history in a much shorter time.Looking at humanity as a group, it seems that we learn and progress faster than ever before. If we take the development of reading and writing as an example, they were once the domain of the nobility and rulers, while the ordinary people did not bridge the gap until the state or leadership initiated a comprehensive change. But today, we live in a completely different era from any past technological development that was initially reserved for the wealthy or the royal class.Today, homeless people have smartphones, and they know how to operate them. A smartphone is practically a computer, and they know how to use it. More than that, some even understand digital payment systems and know how to use them. If you walk the streets of San Francisco, you can see homeless people performing or just asking for donations. People can donate in the old-fashioned way by giving them cash or even via Venmo, a mobile payment service. They have a flyer where you can scan their code and donate money digitally.In other words, the knowledge gap has also narrowed to some extent between the poorest stratum, which represents the homeless population, and the higher stratum of society. Today, the lowest stratum in society is able to operate a smartphone and, therefore, also a tablet or a computer. Let’s not forget that technical mastery of using a smartphone does not necessarily indicate a high level of digital literacy or a critical understanding of information. Still, their starting point is much higher than the starting point of illiterates a century or more ago.Do not get me wrong. Society still has a vast knowledge gap, and low and middle-class kids, as well as minority groups, are impacted by it even today. However, this is a high-level intuitive perspective, and from this lens, smartphones are the enablers that have narrowed the knowledge gap for the lower class of society and can narrow this gap even more.It seems that the smartphone or computer is the new zero point of the world, like paper in the
