Wealth’s Influence on Connectivity in a World of Seven Billion
As the world’s population surpasses seven billion people, our world continues becoming increasingly interconnected with technology. This is nothing surprising and, conceptually, a self reinforcing trend. As more people become connected, there are more chances for connectivity with others. The surprise comes from the degree of division of interconnectivity between the low and high income brackets of the world. An interactive world map from National Geographic shows “Where and how we live” in a world of seven billion and provides data on metrics such as life expectancy and literacy rates in four relative income level brackets. Europe, The Americas, North East Asia, and Australia occupy the highest two income level brackets, while most of Africa and the rest of East Asia occupy the lower two income brackets.
Alarming disparity in technological connectivity between these income brackets can be seen in metrics such as phone subscriptions and internet users. For example, in the highest income bracket, there are on average 46 telephone and 106 cell phone subscriptions per 100 people. In the lowest income level bracket there are on average only 1 telephone and 22 cell phone subscriptions per 100 people. Although this may be impressive given our perceptions th
e extreme poverty of the lowest income class of individuals, it is still a vast difference in interconnectivity through communication. There are on average, more than one cell phone subscription per person in the highest income level! One can imagine how such a network can have many orders of magnitudes more triadic closures compared to the phone network of the lowest income level bracket, and in turn, result in a flow of information on an entirely different scale.
Another factor in network connectivity is physical transportation. Despite the highest income bracket’s higher technological interconnectivity through cell phones (and internet users), the highest income level bracket also has over 75 times as many cars per 1000 people compared to the lowest income level bracket (435.1 versus 5.8), and over 21 times as many cars as the second lowest income bracket (the latter two forming 5 billion of the world’s population). We take our extreme ease of access to transportation for granted considering how much it has allowed us to easily and quickly traverse vast distances and open us up to many unique, diverse, and limited opportunities.
One final metric worth reflecting upon is that only 3 percent of the world’s population lives outside the country in which they were born. Despite the worlds overall interconnectivity through technology, the vast majority of us continues to live within the networks we were born.
Source: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/03/age-of-man/map-interactive