Update on Project Activities
Over the break, our team mainly worked on data analysis as well as getting together our materials for our final presentation. This past Tuesday morning, our team along with our community partners went to the Community Services Agency (CSA) in Palo Alto to give a presentation to the Executive Director, Tom Myers, and his staff. The CSA has and continues to serve as a safety net for those in need in the Mountain View, Los Altos, and Los Altos Hills area. The CSA provides vital social services such as Emergency Financial Assistance, Senior Lunch, Homeless Services, etc. The presentation served as a means to get feedback from an organization whose mission is to help those who presumably have less, whether that be in regard to access to education, health care, or the internet. Additionally, it was in some ways a dry run for our presentation at the d.school this upcoming Wednesday! Through the duration of the week, Kendall nearly completed a full draft of the infographic, which is one of our deliverables. Moreover, we’ve spent more time as a group determining what we want to get out of our data analysis, seeing that there are many ways we can look at our survey. Last but certainly not least, we had our final meeting with our community partners, Alex and Christina, on Friday at 3:00 PM. At this meeting, Alex and Christina provided us feedback from our presentation on Tuesday at the CSA. Thankfully, most of the feedback was related to how we could improve the visuals of our slides. Otherwise, they were both very encouraging. What We Observed and Learned Starting off with our presentation at CSA, one thing in particular that we observed was their differing concerns regarding the 2020 census. To set in place a disclaimer, this wasn’t a large point of contention, but a nuance that came up during our presentation and discussion. One of our project’s largest “so-what” factors is its significance in relation to the 2020 Census. According to the Census Bureau, starting in 2020, there will be an online component of the Census which will necessitate internet access for all of those hoping to report their household data through this means. Those without digital access face the threat of not being included in Census data. While the Tom Myers, Executive Director of the CSA, full-heartedly agreed with this claim, he also vaguely mentioned general qualms with the types of questions being asked on the Census. This just goes to show that while ensuring that people can participate in the Census by being mindful of digital inclusion is necessary, there are also ways that minority groups can be marginalized through the formatting of the survey itself. Both issues must be addressed in order to ensure social equity through the Census. Something else that we observed and was substantiated through our meeting with the CSA, was the need for more diversity within the languages that the survey was offered in. As of right now, our survey is only offered in English and Spanish. This is mainly due to resource limitations as Romeo was the only fluent speaker of a language besides English. Upon our visit to the senior center, we realized that there were many other non-English monolingual speakers, particularly Asian languages like Chinese, that were active in the community. While this wasn’t necessarily a surprise given the demographic diversity within Mountain View, we were not prepared to survey individuals in any other languages except English and Spanish. This is a clear missed opportunity. This observation was further supported by a comment made by Tom Myers, suggesting that we expand the language accessibility of the survey moving forward in languages such as Chinese and Russian. Connecting this to the larger idea of community-based work, this experience raises questions of selecting or bringing on team members who are able to communicate with individuals in their preferred language. On a small scale, for example, in a community dominated by one language, this is a fairly simple and easy task. However, when addressing an entire city population, making sure everyone can be included is a much more difficult task depending on the limitations of your team as well as your resources. A potential solution that can be applied both in this type of situation or in any form of community-based work is hiring community members whom you trust to do the translation work for you. Collaborating in this way also comes with the added bonus of social capital of that particular community member. People want their communities to be heard and more often than not are willing to help, whether that be voluntary or as a result of a wage. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward As this quarter and this project come to a close, only a few things remain to complete: data analysis, final presentation, and final deliverables. As of right now, Neal and I are focusing on completing both qualitative and quantitative analysis for both the presentation and the final deliverables. Given the amount of data that we have collected for each, the quantitative work is most significant and serves as the main source of our findings. Per our discussion with Christina and Alex, we’ll be analyzing the data on two main levels: 1) a general overview of the City of Mountain View and 2) based on reported demographic differences, in particular, income level. This will allow us to show how the responses of those with relatively less differ from the higher income Mountain View residents. As for our final presentation, we will be re-iterating on the slide deck that we created for the CSA presentation while adding new finds as this becomes available. Last but not least, we’ve been working on our final deliverables for the past two weeks and are on track to hit our last due date! Is there anything you might have done differently if you were to embark on your project from the beginning? We unanimously agreed that we could have produced more interesting findings specifically related to the people that were not connected to the internet by doing more targeted surveying. Before saying anything more, it should be known that this type of broad research was necessary given the fact that it hadn’t been done before. Nevertheless, our team can’t help but feel like we didn’t get enough data from the people we were hoping to learn about. Originally, what prevented us from doing this type of outreach in the first place were concerns related to making this target population feel uncomfortable or singled-out. This should be a researcher’s first concern when conducting ethical community-based research. Despite that, moving forward the next project group should further ideate on ways to learn about community members who lack digital access without compromising good ethics. What was your greatest learning from your community partner and/or from your fellow teammates? Overall, what we learned from our community partner was of and related to the inner workings of local government. Three out of our four members had never really worked on projects that were in cooperation with a local entity such as the City of Mountain View. In politics, we hear so much about the state and federal governments that the importance of local entities is often overlooked. In reality, a local government such as the City of Mountain View is responsible for making critical decisions that affect the daily lives of, in this case, nearly 80,000 individuals. We sincerely appreciated the efforts made by Alex and Christina to make sure the voices that could be missed will be heard in the 2020 Census. Moreover, we were relieved to see the degree to which they involved community members to participate in the decision and strategy making process. Thanks to the guidance of our community partners, we were able to talk to key groups within Mountain View whose responses and stories heavily influenced the findings of this research project. Was there a particular "a-ha" moment during your project that shifted your thinking about sustainability or community-based work? Or if you cannot pinpoint a specific incident, what major learnings will you take away from this experience? One particular moment stood out to all of us, it was when we realized that the affordable internet plans offered by service providers such as AT&T and Comcast really weren’t serving the community they claimed to want to help due to low internet access speeds. Many of the members of our team assumed that we’d walk into the focus group with the Spanish Speaking Ambassadors and offer them a solution through these low-cost internet services. On the contrary, we quickly learned that many of the individuals in the room had heard of and even signed up for these internet services, but found them useless because of slow loading speeds. To make matters worse, in these situations, individuals often found themselves bait-and-switched to more expensive plans by the very same companies that claimed to want to help them. Connecting this to the larger idea of community-based work, it just goes to show how little outside researchers know before speaking with the individuals they hope to help out. This is why the participation ladder is essential. If decision makers do not give the citizens they are hoping to help some degree of citizen power, it can result in the implementation of solutions the people themselves have already discovered to be insufficient. Update on Project Activities
This week we were wrapping up all of our final data collection. On Sunday, we met with our community partners, Alex and Christina, to discuss the best ways to survey the areas less-represented in our online survey. We decided to go to the Teen and Senior Centers to interview the people there, as we hypothesized that older and lower-income individuals would have the lowest frequency of digital accessibility/ connectivity. On Tuesday, Kelli and Katherine visited the Senior Center about an hour before their most frequented weekly event: free lunch. While they remained there until the lunch began, most of the seniors were (a) not willing to answer their questions or (b) didn’t speak English. Neal and Kendall’s trip to the Teen Center yesterday (Thursday), however, was a bit more successful, as the teens and children were very willing to answer questions, though they often didn’t seem quite as knowledgeable about their family’s plans and internet accessibility. We talked to about 13 teens, from middle- to high-school aged. They answered questions about internet accessibility and speed, their family and friend’s usage patterns, and the devices in their household. Moreover, the staff of the Teen Center agreed to posting a link to the online survey on their instagram. In our meeting with Alex and Christina, we discussed the plan for after break. We have a meeting planned with the Community Services Agency (CSA), a non-profit organization based in Mountain View, where we intend to present the preliminary results from our findings. Additionally, Alex and Christina agreed to one final push on the online surveys via their social medias: Alex via the twitter for Mountain View’s economy and Christina via the same three social media channels as before: NextDoor, Twitter, and Facebook. What We Observed and Learned The difficulties we encountered at the senior center were particularly interesting, as they really helped to shed light upon some of the difficulties with surveying. While we weren’t able to collect concrete data, the presence of many monolingual non-English speakers could have been indicative of a lack of either digital accessibility or literacy. It would be interesting to brainstorm ways for future analysis of such an important target group. The visit to the teen center was also very enlightening. Most of the teens seemed to come from a similar background: relatively low-income, Hispanic families with a large number of residents. While only one of the 13 children interviewed didn’t have internet access at home, several of the children expressed the limits on time and speed of their wifi. Much as we learned during the Spanish Speaking Ambassador Meeting, the majority of individuals, regardless of their wifi connection, have numerous devices. In terms of usage, most of the kids said they mainly used the internet to play video games or watch youtube, with only a few indicating that they use it for homework. In regards to the latter, many of them explained that their schools often provided them with chromebooks to do their assignments in class or on the premises. In terms of digital literacy, a few of the kids told us that they often had to help their family navigate the internet or use their devices. While the kids all had their own phones, it was fairly rare that they had both 4G and at-home wifi access. Typically, it was only one or the other. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward Perhaps the most interesting idea that we gathered from our time at the teen center was the fact that most of the kids didn’t seem to use internet for what would be deemed valuable things. It was often unclear whether their wifi access was limited because of poor connectivity or because their parents tried to limit their video game/ TV/ and youtube usage. Nearly every child we talked to, regardless of their connectivity, had a nintendo switch, a PS4, or some other gaming device. It’s interesting to think about the moral implications of providing free or lower-cost wifi to children that don’t necessarily use it for educational purposes. A quick walk through the teen center showed most children playing Fortnite or Call of Duty on the TVs or playing some sort of game on their phone. While our project is incredibly important in so many regards, it’s also important to think about the drawbacks that can come with unlimited internet access. On a more positive note, we are hoping to finish up our data collection and begin analysis in the coming week. Christina is going to scan and email the paper results of the surveys that we distributed in the Spanish speaking Ambassadors meeting last week. They had agreed to try to distribute the surveys to their community members and friends. We will also aggregate the new data that we received from the teen center and hopefully begin to analyze all of it in R or Stata. Over the break, we’re also hoping to make some progress on our final deliverables. Kendall is going to work on creating an infographic and heat map, Kelli is going to work on qualitative analysis, and Neil and Katherine are going to begin work on the presentation. Update on Project Activities
This week we had our first focus group with the Mountain View Spanish Speaking Ambassadors. We gave a brief overview of our project, asked them to fill out the Spanish-translated paper survey and then solicited general comments. If willing, we also asked them to distribute additional paper versions of the survey to members of their own community, as then we can further represent this often underrepresented group. The survey will also be published again through The City of Mountain View’s social media channels, as we saw a large spike in the number of responses directly after publishing. What We Observed and Learned The insights that the Ambassadors were willing to share were incredibly influential in our view of the digital divide and the impact of this project. One key takeaway was the experience with affordable internet options. Both Comcast and AT&T have internet options for $10 to $15 a month specifically for low-income residents that qualify by being eligible for food stamps or other government assistance programs. Our team was disheartened by the feedback that these programs often prey on low-income residents. The affordable internet is a “hook” to get people subscribed to the service. Then, as many ambassadors shared, the actual service is so poor that the internet is almost unusable. As such, they call to ask about an upgrade, which drastically increases the price. One ambassador said that with the extras she had to purchase in order to have internet fast enough to allow her daughter to use the internet for schoolwork, she is now paying $67/month. These lived experiences are incredibly enlightening. Our initial focus was trying to spread awareness of these programs for residents in need, but now we’re faced with larger questions about the efficacy of current low-cost options. This experience really showed us the necessity of citizen participation. When we consider the ladder of citizen participation, we feel like we’re stuck at the Placation stage. The ambassadors can advise, but don’t have decision making power. We’re considering how we can further engage all community members. On that note of community member engagement, an interesting historical example was brought to light at the meeting. The ambassadors recalled in 2016 when Google came into Mountain View promising fast, affordable wifi service available to all. However, the latency was high and the project was quickly abandoned, leaving the citizens disappointed and confused. While our project is more research-based and we don’t have direct decision-making power, we want to keep the experiences of community members at the front of our minds when considering policy recommendations. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward The focus group gave some great feedback about current resources. The hours of the senior center don’t cater towards those who work until 7 or 8pm at night. Some of the digital literacy classes in the library are inaccessible because of the language barrier. Overall, there was a really strong ask for more education. Paraphrasing an ambassador, she said that education about how to use the technology is almost more important than direct access to it. While she can borrow a computer or visit the library, because she doesn’t understand how to use digital resources, she is unable to consume any information from them. The importance of digital literacy and ensuring that adequate resources are available and accessible was really stressed. That being said, a majority of our survey respondents, as well as those whom attended our focus group, were older than 60. We’re also interested in learning how younger demographics interact with technology and the barriers that they face. As such, we’re going to hopefully be visiting the Mountain View teen center next week. The largest hurdle that we’re currently facing is a problem that we anticipated, the location data that our survey provides is not targeted enough to determine communities within Mountain View that do not have internet access. As such, we’re mainly relying on the ambassadors to distribute the survey to members of their community that do not have internet access. When we meet with our community partner this next week, we’re going to be focusing on strategies to engage with those without access. Update on Project Activities This week, our group has mainly been working on finalizing and publishing the various formats of our survey. Romeo was able to translate the online survey on Stanford Qualtrics into Spanish to be used for online distribution via our various channels. Kelli also worked this week to create a one-page, double-sided paper version of our survey for later in-person distribution. She sent this to Alex and Christina and received their approval. Additionally, we set finalized our Spanish Speaking Ambassador focus group for November 7th at 6:30pm. Our largest project deliverable thus far, however, is likely the online publication of the survey. Since its online release on October 29th, we have had 143 responses, all of which were from individuals in households with internet access. The graphs below summarize the community’s responses to some of the most notable accessibility and demographic questions. What We Observed and Learned
The article on the Red Hook Wifi Project was particularly interesting and especially relevant this week, considering we are starting to get our survey results back. One of the most interesting components of the Red Hook plan was their focus on providing non-mobile WiFi access, based upon their conclusion that most households accessed the internet via their mobile phones, not via computers/ wireless routers. Thus far, it is unclear how much this pertains to the digital divide in Mountain View, as a lack of internet access could also be attributable to a lack of access to hardware - phones, laptops, desktops, etc.- or a lack of digital literacy. According to our current survey results, 121 respondents use a traditional WiFi router, 44 use a Mobile Provider’s LTE, 19 use public WiFi, and 10 use some other form of internet access. There is also an interesting juxtaposition in regards to location. Red Hook, Brooklyn- a waterfront community fairly isolated by highways and waterways- was hit particularly hard by Hurricane Sandy and has been working to recover ever since. Mountain View, home to Google, LinkedIn, and Inuit is located in the heart of the booming tech scene and struggles to keep up with the pace of the growing industry. This brings forth the idea that the “digital divide” likely manifests itself in very different ways and subsequently must be addressed in different ways depending on the structure of the community. Ultimately, said issue, while national, is perhaps best addressed on a local scale. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward In terms of where to go from here, our major issue is probably the lack of diversity in survey respondents and, specifically, the lack of response from particular target groups of interest- the elderly, low income individuals, minorities, mono-lingual non-English speakers, and, most obviously, those without internet access. Each of these groups will require a different approach in regards to outreach. Surveying the elderly would best be done in-person at senior centers. The input of mono-lingual Spanish speakers will be included in next week’s focus group. Targeting the other groups will likely require the identification of on-site canvassing locations and in-person surveys. This is ultimately the goal for the next couple of weeks: utilizing the data from our online survey to identify areas of low-response and canvassing these areas to collect survey data. Update on Project Activities
Over the last 2 weeks we made the last changes to our survey as discussed at the meeting we had before our last reflection. The survey is live and being put out to Mountain View’s various communities through social media channels and other resources at the city’s disposal. We’ve also translated the survey to Spanish to broaden the access and reach of our survey. During week 4, Romeo and Kendall went to a meeting that the Spanish Speaking Ambassadors had at City Hall. There they presented a truncated version of the midterm presentation in order to recruit some of the attendees for a focus group. Based on some speculation from city officials, the community that the Spanish Speaking Ambassadors reaches is likely one of the communities that will not be reached by the city’s online presence as well as one that will be well connected to the parts of Mountain View affected by the digital divide. The presentation went well and there was a lot of interest in the goals of the project as well as being part of the focus group. What We Observed and Learned One promising and motivating observation was seen at the Spanish Speaking Ambassadors meeting. Since we’re working with Mountain View rather than a community organization, one detail we’ve been trying to hone in on is how to grant the community control and participation in our project, which is inherently pretty high level. The members of the community meeting were all very interested in how to work with the city on fixing the digital divide. We hope that the results of our work won’t just stay in the city; in order to work towards a goal of putting the results in the hands of people who can benefit from them we have to establish those connections now. Part of our survey includes questions about the resources that Mountain View has to offer (i.e. city libraries, teen centers, senior centers, etc) that can help close the digital divide. However it’s very important to understand how the services that the city provides do or don’t reach certain communities. We hope that our focus groups will help shed some light on those issues and establish deeper partnerships between the city and the people that the city should exist to serve when it comes to the digital divide. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward As stated earlier, we are trying to be very mindful of how to cement community control in this project. Using Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation, it’s easy to view the digital literacy programs that exist in Mountain View as relatively low on this ladder. Fortunately there are very concrete steps to move the programs up the ladder through existing infrastructure. The Spanish Speaking Ambassadors are already in contact with the city and offering services such as information that can serve undocumented members of the community, tax information, etc to people who attend the meetings. We expect that one of the main policy recommendations that we will propose to the city is increasing access to the digital literacy services and programs that already exist through the community centers. Putting the distribution of those services high on the ladder of citizen participation, in this case, solves two problems at once. If we include the community as much as we can in the city’s attempts to reach those who need the classes the most, we can both figure out what would be the most useful information to get to the community and figure out how to actually bring them in. Too often we see that there is a missing link between laws, regulations, or policies and the people they’re supposed to benefit. The city of Mountain View can create as many digital literacy classes as they want, but if nobody is attending them - because they aren’t in Spanish, for example - there might as well be no classes. Moving forward we hope to set up a focus group that can help us develop policy that will make a meaningful difference. We will also start to look at results as they come in and either fine tune our survey or begin to make that next step of analysis based on what we have so far. |
Archives
November 2020
Categories
All
|