Social Impact

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When One Laptop per Child is widely adopted it will have far ranging effects on social structure and people.

Parts of this are explored at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ask_OLPC_a_Question_about_Social_Issues

A number of articles published elsewhere on the Internet have begun to explore aspects of this.

http://mobileactive.org/olpc-versus-mobile-phone-false-dichotomy "The OLPC versus the Mobile Phone - A False Dichotomy"

http://www.humanitarian.info/2008/05/19/olpc-a-different-type-of-disaster/ "OLPC: a different type of disaster altogether"

From the article:

"One Laptop Per Child has been a textbook example both of the worst kind of development . . . and the most egregious kind of technotopianism . . ."

"One Laptop Per Child Foundation: The Competitive NonProfit" By Gordon Zhu http://www.thesicgroup.org/OLPC.pdf

Discusses how the OLPC project has affected both profit and non-profit efforts to get laptops into the hands of children worldwide.

"Top Ten Issues of One Laptop Per Child" by [| Edward Tse ] http://www.olpcnews.com/implementation/plan/ten_issues_child_laptop.html

Elements identified include:

Focus, Readability Existing infrastructure Not all learning can be done with an OLPC, Lack of content Keyboards, Scalability, Ergonomics Wrong Problem The Community of Learning vs. The Cult of the North American Individual

Of these, half relate to the sociology of the OLPC rather than the technology.

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Articles once linked to on this Wiki are now available at the Wayback Machine. It is not clear why these articles were removed. A list of these articles appears below.

August 17, 2006 "It's A Structure Project, Not an Education Project: The $100 laptop and the creation of social structure" by Michael de la Maza.

August 21, 2006 "Infatuation, Disillusionment, and Contentment: Understanding the Adoption of One Laptop per Child" by Michael de la Maza

August 24, 2006 "OLPC: Not Better, Not Worse – Different" by Michael de la Maza

August 26, 2006 "Adults and the OLPC" by Michael de la Maza

August 31, 2006 "Connecting, Kindness, and the OLPC" by Michael de la Maza

September 4, 2006 "Pictures and the OLPC" by Michael de la Maza

September 7, 2006 "Dating and the OLPC" by Michael de la Maza

December 30, 2006 ["The Cult of the Individual and the OLPC" by clarka]