Citizensheep. "Michael Grimes lives in Birmingham (UK). This is his blog about anything that he fancies."

If the powers-that-be are so keen on digital inclusion, and for citizens to embrace social media, then they need to ensure that connectivity is completely pervasive.

For example, the UK government wants to set up a scheme of ‘digital mentors‘. These people would help other people learn how to use ’social media’ to get their voice heard. For instance, a group of people who haven’t used computers before might want to tell the world about problems on their estate.

This is all very well. But at the moment we can only do these things where there is internet access: that might be at home, if we can afford it and understand how to manage it; it might be in a shop or a cafe, which charges us for it or doesn’t have it switched on.

A couple of weeks ago Paul Henderson and I tried to find wifi near the Houses of Parliament: surely not hard to do?

Our first stop was Starbucks. Being used to Birmingham – where there are at least a few places offering free wifi – we bought our coffees and tried to log in. That’s when we found we had to pay. So we drank our coffees and left.

Next stop was McDonalds, which is known for its free wifi. A sign on the door said ‘free wifi’, but there was nothing inside saying how to use it. The staff didn’t know how to use it either, and spent two minutes at the back of the shop hunting for a leaflet (I still have it; probably the last one in Westminster). The leaflet tried to be helpful, but made things incredibly complicated (click this, change these settings, etc etc).

After a while we realised that the wifi network actually wasn’t available. Perhaps they’d forgotten to switch it on; at any rate the staff were clueless about it.

Even if it had been on, trying to use a laptop in there was awful: the table was an awkward distance from the chair, and this couldn’t be changed because both were fixed to the floor.

If the government really wants to encourage ‘digital inclusion‘ it needs to make it easy for people to access the internet at any time and at any place. We should not have to go searching for it, and it should not be left to shops to provide us with their version of it.

• Possibly related posts

  1. One week of wifi: could you do it?
  2. Map of wifi in Birmingham
  3. Digital Economy Bill: my email to Lynne Jones MP
  4. Should we tackle the digital divide or live with it?
  5. Digital mentors?

Accessibility,Digital engagement,Social media