Digital Commmunities

Technology has affected us is through civic engagement. With technology comes the opportunity of making citizens more involved people. The Internet in particular, will play key role in how effective digital citizenship is.

A quote from Pew Internet, a site that reports several different surveys on an array of topics gives some insight on this topic.

“For a variety of reasons, the internet might be expected to raise participation: The interactive capacities of the internet allow certain forms of political activity to be conducted more easily; vast amounts of political information available on the internet could have the effect of lowering the costs of acquiring political knowledge and stimulating political interest; the capacities of the internet facilitate mobilization to take political action.”

This quote leads me to believe that new technology will play an essential role in civic engagement for years to come. People have never been able to have access to so much information so quickly and with so little effort. This allows for citizens to become more involved not only in their country, but the communities they live in.

Another quote from Pew shows how much technology and civic engagement are intertwined.

“Just over one-third of Americans (36%) are involved in a civic or political group, and more than half of these (56%) use digital tools to communicate with other group members.”

As you can see technology is now an essential part of civic engagement. They are now inseparable and it will be interesting to see how innovators in the future use technology to make citizens more engaged and involved in their communities.