Introspection time kids

According to the U.N. half of the world's population owns a cell phone, thus increasing the notion that we -the collective human race- are more interconnected and interdependent than ever before.

But, is that necessarily a true statement? Are we really moving more towards a global community and international standards of decent living simply because half of the world has mobile technology? I would argue that in fact the same 1/2 which have always been spared the worst of conditions just happen to be isolating themselves more and more from the rest of the world in which we inhabit.

What about the other half? The half without a cell phone? The half who would trade a Nokia for a meal.

• 50% of the world's population lives in poverty that is unimaginable; earning $2.50 per day or less.
• 40% of the people of the world; all three billion of 'em, live without even clean drinking water.
• One in eight children in the world go to bed hungry every night. And, America, don't be so smug. Nearly 12 million children in the most prosperous country in the world, go hungry.
• What about WHO studies that indicate that because of inadequate healthcare, up to 100 million women die prematurely.

I could literally, and unfortunately, rattle these off for days. I suppose the only thing to draw from this is that the top tier, those with water and health care and food and shelter, those who have the cellphones the UN lauds so much are the ones who design the meme, who get reported on, who we collectively give a shit about. And, in the West, that heuristic, that meme simply does not, and rarely has, included or extended to the forgotten 50%.