By Daniella Rodriguez
From its silly cat videos to its complex search engines, the Internet is one of the wonders of modern society.
Perhaps the strongest proponents of the Internet are the current generation of adolescents who were born into the Digital Age. Today’s teenage students can describe how the internet has undoubtedly revolutionized the way in which students are being taught from firsthand experience. Long gone are the days when students relied on expensive, heavy encyclopedia sets that seemingly contained all the knowledge in the world. Now, all of this information and more can be conveniently found online with free research databases, educational tutorials and publication methods, knowledge has never been so accessible.
Although the accessibility that the internet offers has always been a constant for many young people, today’s adolescent generation might soon be stripped of their digital freedom. This ability for all people to surf the limitless web at no charge is granted by current net neutrality regulations. After heated debates over the possible repeal of current net neutrality regulations took the news and the internet by storm in 2017, a decision was made about the fate of net neutrality on Dec. 14. In a 3-2 decision led by Chairman Ajit Pai, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed the net neutrality regulations that have protected internet users since 2015.
Unless net neutrality laws are reinstated, what will become of the future of education and of society?
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, net neutrality is “the idea that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks fairly, without improper discrimination in favor of particular apps, sites or services.”
Saint Saviour High School’s Technology Chairperson Anthony Tricarico, offered additional insight to the net neutrality debate.
“Net neutrality is the concept that all data should be treated equally no matter where it comes from or who delivers it,” said Tricarico.
“This means that the Internet service providers [Verizon, Comcast, Spectrum, etc.] don’t get to charge you more based on usage.”
Tricarico, who teaches about the implications of net neutrality repeal in all of his classes, further explained that “[the loss of net neutrality] implies that content providers have the right to charge and to essentially create what is called a two-tier Internet. People who have the resources and means to afford faster lanes of internet service will receive them … people who do not have the means will have to suffer … service providers will benefit and profit from them. This exists in a lot of countries outside of the United States, including Portugal and the Philippines.”
Indeed, there are many countries in which the Internet is not readily available to all citizens free of charge. As a result, many citizens of Asian and African countries have taken advantage of a service practice as zero-rating. Through zero-rating, people are able to access multiple services typically offered by the Internet at a more affordable rates. Facebook Zero is one example of zero-rating, offering people text-based social-networking services that are inexpensive, yet fully functional.
Although such services provide an alternative for universally accessible Internet amenities, they do not offer solace for all, especially those closest to the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. If the Internet is to be equal, it must first be free.
The abolition of net neutrality comes at a rather unfortunate time for many Catholic high schools and middle schools today. Schools such Saint Saviour High School, Park Slope; Bishop Kearney High School, Bensonhurst; Saint Edmund Preparatory High School and Saint Mark Catholic Academy, Sheepshead Bay, have recently implemented 1:1 Chromebook Initiative Programs as a part of their curriculum in order to offer a more engaging, personalized learning experience to an increasingly tech-savvy generation of students.
The 1:1 Program, also known as the 1:World Program, provides each student in a given school a personal laptop, fully equipped with educational programs such as Google Classroom and Google Docs, and each teacher a tool to utilize in the classroom setting.
One of the most beneficial features of the program is the ease of availability to the Internet; students are never more than one click away from endless information at all times.
However, this easy access may vanish just as quickly as it appeared since net neutrality regulations have vanished. Students unable to afford faster Internet speed, especially those without devices at home, would be highly disadvantaged in comparison to those for whom affordability is no major issue. For schools unable to afford the costs of faster Internet speeds for each student, what might happen to the 1:1 Chromebook Initiative Programs?
Julie Pham, a senior AP Computer Science student at Saint Saviour, expressed similar concerns.
“If I am required to pay for YouTube services that I cannot afford, how will I be able to better understand difficult physics or calculus concepts?”
Pham also lists Desmos – a free website that offers students the full benefits of typically expensive advanced graphing calculators – as another example of the ways in which the Internet can be used to support a student’s education. Without equal access to the Internet, information that was once available at the press of a button could easily slip through the fingers of young students.
Free access to all Internet services is a matter of social justice. Net neutrality is synonymous with equality: it offers equal accessibility to the Internet regardless of socioeconomic status, as anyone with a device can access the web; taking away this type of accessibility to vast sources of information that people without proper financial means may not be able to access is a cruel injustice.
Keeping this in mind, it is important to ensure that the world’s resources of knowledge can be equally accessed by current and future students alike.
Rodriguez is a senior at St. Saviour H.S., Park Slope.