Sharing internet should not be as scary as it sounds
A glimpse into a life without the web on the 43 bus in County Durham, from Shivani Daxini
To most people, the number 43 likely means very little. But ask any resident in former county Durham colliery, Esh Winning, and the sound of the number ‘43’ is guaranteed to spark a reaction. It seems that when the 43 bus turns it hardly receives praise, since its regular, ambiguous, missing appearances are at the forefront of the average passenger’s memory.
When ‘a 43’ did eventually turn up last Wednesday, and a load of people crammed onto the single decker since the three due prior to this one had been nowhere to be seen, I was one of the lucky ones who found themselves sat on a seat.
A few seats in front of me, one passenger turned around informing everyone to submit a complaint to Arriva, else nothing will happen. I nodded in agreement, wanting to keep up his morale considering the bloke behind him who’d just finished his shift at McDonalds said there was no way he’d be doing ‘owt.
As I flicked up the Arriva website on my device, I was greeted a timid looking lady took the seat next to me peering over my shoulder, before adding: ‘Yeah that won’t do anything.’ I laughed jovially and explained that at the very least she may get a voucher.
Though, on the other hand, I understood the futile faces which I so regularly encountered on the bus that had finally turned up. The feeling of powerlessness which overrides you when a bus doesn’t turn up, and asking the nearest driver at the station does nothing, because nobody has an answer, and nobody has a solution. It’s a paralysing feeling, complaining about a system that feels so out of your depths that you don’t know where to start, similar to how I feel when teaching first year students at Durham University, marking their essays in the allocated 30 minutes I’m paid for.
Five minutes later, I’d apparently sold the complaints form to her, and she was asking me to fill one out in her name, as she didn’t have internet at home. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, the North East of England has one of the highest proportions of people without internet access in the UK. Around 11% of residents either do not regularly use the internet or do not have regular access placing it among the most digitally excluded regions in the country.
Furthermore, the country has lost one in twenty public libraries since 2016, either by closing them completely or transitioning them to volunteer-run groups. In some ways, the uncertainty of the 43 bus and public transport provisions seemed to have parallels with ability to secure solid, consistent internet either in public or private.
My bus companion and I soon found out we in fact resided on the same street. “Hm not sure your internet will stretch to number 5.’’ Considering we have to get off at different bus stops it seemed obvious that the suggestion of sharing the wifi password was not feasible. Nonetheless, she proceeded to suggest popping round one evening this week to test it out. I enquired about her immediate neighbours, to which she responded they were so old they could not move.
Upon sharing this anecdote later that evening via text with a friend, they responded rather immediately. “I’ve been meaning to ask my neighbour the exact same thing” they’d exclaimed, before adding a text insisting “sharing internet should not be as scary as it sounds, like what will they steal from me THROUGH the wifi.”
Would the sharing of a Wi-Fi password be a harmless act of relief for someone without access? Should a weird feeling of fear have filled my stomach? No one on the bus that day felt like they had a tangible solution for the endless number of 43s which just don’t turn up. But here, I was presented with an immediate way of solving a problem. No internet access- ask your neighbour. No complaint forms, no bureaucracy of seeing what you might be entitled for just a simple, oh yeah its: XYSYAB20A.
Whether Wi-Fi sharing is the way forward, is a good analogy is debateable, but that immediate reaction or trigger in us when a stranger asks for more than a simple hello from us is something which perhaps needs working on, so that we don’t immediately refute help but consider what is and isn’t possible and what is and isn’t genuine fear or threat.
The 43 bus, alike others I’m sure, is already an intimate space. Apart from the bus, and the quietly disappearing public libraries, it feels that such places where its almost normal to be so close to strangers is disappearing.
Not to mention mechanisms for raising complaint without a form requiring your ticket number, time of travel, bus number being non-existent, whether that’s public transport inconsistencies, university teaching conditions or public facility funding.
About the author: Shivani is a PhD candidate at Durham University funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Her research is Anthropological and ethnographic in nature. She is part of the New Writing North initiative.
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