Socio-digital Inclusion

Digital technology pushes through the boundaries of time and space and brings people and cultures together by opening windows to look into wonderful, remote experiences worthy of being reproduced. It gives people autonomy and broadens areas for communication and inclusion in the world and workforce. It also gives people the access to global products, services, and content. Being socially-digitally included means to have access to digital communication devices and fully enjoy the empowerment they give, especially that from access to the Internet.

It is now understood that not being able to access the Internet and other platforms that enable digital communication means that one cannot exercise basic rights. This becomes even truer considering that the global economy grows increasingly dependent on the digital environment, which in turn has also grown into an important space for political and social discussion and access to information. Therefore, the digital environment truly enables one to exercise his or her basic rights of citizenship.

For this reason, we defend that digital inclusion should be included as an item on the list of definitions of poverty defined by the Indian economist, Amartya Sen. Sen detached the concept of poverty from the concept of income through multiple studies around the world. He defended that the concept of poverty is multidimensional of which definition goes beyond that established by the World Bank that states poverty means to live on less than $2 a day. For Sen, poverty means depriving one of basic needs such as health, education, and housing.