subject: Digital Divide Continues To Plague Developed And Developing Societies In Subtler Ways [print this page] In the mid-1990s, the idea that entire groups of people were being left behind the accelerating information technology revolution caused concern that reached the highest levels of authority. The American President Bill Clinton and other heads of governments and states the world over spoke passionately about programs needed to eradicate what many saw as the beginning of a major social exclusion. Over time, considerable investment in computers at schools or in libraries, as well as other initiatives, somewhat flattened out access to digital devices and the web, aided by powerful market trends towards cheaper equipment and greater competition among Internet providers. It was also private charities which set out to educate the elderly or kids in poorer neighbourhoods that contributed enormously to overcoming the glaring digital divide of the 1990s.
The dominant perception now is that everyone who wants to take advantage of opportunities afforded by computers can do so quite easily, even with minimal resources at hand. Recently, US papers were expressing their optimism about other high-risk groups which were in danger of staying on the wrong side of the divide black and Latino citizens. They too are integrating into the ever-expanding community of computer and Internet users.
Participation statistics may be reassuring but a more careful look behind these figures reveals that the digital divide continues to operate in subtler ways. One thing is that different groups are primed to use digital technology in different ways, with some lagging behind as mere consumers of online entertainment or services, others willing and able to monetize from their computer skills. It is easy to argue that the decision how to use technology is inherently individual, but patterns along age or racial lines point to the fact that there is heavy imbalance in distribution of digital entrepreneurs or web creators.
Another problem is hardware and infrastructure. While it is no longer true that some are totally left out from partaking in the digital revolution, differentiation in advancement of technology that social groups are using and in the quality of Internet connections can be debilitating. This can have immediate consequences for the comfort, speed and effectiveness of doing things digitally and it can encourage or discourage certain types of behaviour. Access in schools in libraries only is a serious limitation too as these institutions rarely open beyond standard working hours and fall short of providing a feeling of privacy. In practice, this may translate into greater trouble doing homework or making bank transactions online. Also, services like computer repair Miami or data recovery Miami confirm that different social groups tend to request different kinds of interventions from their technicians, indicative of their inclusion in the digital revolution.
There are reasons to be happy about how digital technology is reaching homes and minds regardless of age, status or race, but beneath this layer of ubiquity there are still important imbalances and inequalities that can prove consequential in the future.
