Digital divide

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Who is affected by the Digital Divide?

In order to discover who was most likely to be affected by the Digital Divide, I looked at research in six different areas: socioeconomic status, race, gender, age, and ability, and global access.

People on the wrong side of the divide are increasingly being shut out of opportunities, education, and jobs because of their lack of technical competency. Students who arrive at college lacking computer and technology skills and who are not technologically fluent are at a distinct disadvantage in a tertiary education environment, compared to their technology-literate peers.

1. 2. Socioeconomic factors

Not surprisingly, there is a tremendous gap between socioeconomic classes. While most people would agree that the most powerful tool available to young people with regard to bettering their circumstances is an education, it is important to remember that, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s report, Falling Through the Net, less than 20% of people with a high school diploma or less have internet access despite the fact that they make up 52% of the population. In contrast, the Benton Foundation's research shows that the usage rate for upper income families is close to 90%.

The Benton Foundation’s research regarding technology access by lower income families found that 80% of households with income greater than $100,000 own a computer. 25% of households with incomes under $30,000 own a computer. Meanwhile, 53% of people with a college degree have Internet access, although they only make up 23% of the population.

2. Race/Ethnicity

The NTIA report, Falling Through the Net also show great disparity between white and non-white families. Half of all white families have computers, but statistics for Black and Hispanic families indicate that only 29% have a computer in their home.

Race and socioeconomic status overlap in some studies. According Hoffman and Novack (1999) 81% of African American households with no Internet access had household annual incomes under $40,000. 61% of white households with similar incomes had no Internet access.

3. Gender

According to Cooper and Weaver in their book, Gender and Computers: Understanding the Digital Divide, the digital divide between genders starts as early as elementary school, because educational software, predominantly built by men, does not take in to account differing learning styles between boys and girls.

They also found that both girls and women report much higher levels of anxiety regarding computer usage as compared to boys and men, creating a barrier to technology usage. In their research, girls and women experienced anxiety when using software containing features preferred by male users, and they also experienced anxiety when using a computer in the presence of others.

Cooper and Weaver researched the gender divide from elementary school to college. When they surveyed entering freshmen about their computer experience, they found that overwhelmingly, male students were found to be much more comfortable using computers than female students were. Curious about why? They surmise that comfort level is a direct result of formal computer training: 100% of the men reported having had some sort of formal computer training before they arrived at college, compared to only 55% of the freshmen women. Women also reported anxiety about classes that had an integral IT component.

This may explain why women comprise 50% of the U.S. workforce, but hold only 20% of the jobs in technology, according to the Cisco Learning Initiatives project.

4. Age

Some researchers call this the Grey Gap. According to Daniel Salter, in an article he wrote in 2001 for About Campus, only 17% of people over the age of 50 have computers, but that this small group spend more time online than any other age group. According to the Pew Internet American Life Project report, "Fully 81 percent of people who say they definitely will not go online are over 50. Fifty-six percent of those over age 65 say they will definitely not go online, compared to just six percent who say they definitely plan to go online.

5. Ability

According to research done by D. Salter and published in the journal About Campus, the rate of computer use among individuals with disabilities may be one third less than use among people without disabilities.

Approximately 12% of all men are colour blind. If software visual clues are coded for colours that don't register for these men, that software won't be as accessible for them. Web developers need to be very aware of colour palettes when working with designers, so that content is visible for these men.

The Web Accessibility Initiative addresses issues of accessibility to web design and content. They provide html guides for designers so that elements can be built in to sites to make them more accessible. Bobby is a not for profit online html validator tool that allows developers and designers to run their code and find accessibility issues to make their pages as accessible as possible. Common solutions include adding 'alt' tags to images, so that visually impaired web users can have a description of the picture read to them by software specifically designed to allow them to browse the internet.

While it is good business sense to make web pages disability accessible, there are millions of web pages out there, millions more being added all the time, and most developers either don't understand the need for special tagging or don't think that the added time of making a page accessible is financially worth the effort.

6. Global Access

According to D. Tiene in an article published in Educational Media International in 2002, only 55% of the world’s population has internet access. Not surprisingly, this 5% lives predominantly in wealthy nations.

North American countries like the United States and Canada have high levels of access compared to other countries in the world. Hong Kong also has a high concentration of internet users which inflate the access numbers for Asia, but the majority of citizens in The People’s Republic of China have no access to the internet. Africa makes up less than 0.9% of the world’s internet users, and the Middle East has less than 0.1%.