Digital Divide

The digital divide seems to be closing quickly in America but some groups of Americans seem to be getting left behind. The term digital divide refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without. It is important to keep changing our definition of what the digital divide is because of the speed at which technology is evolving and while a study might show almost everyone is using the internet, another study asking the right questions might show that many of the people that use the internet don’t use it to its full potential.

Recent studies have shown that population groups at high risk of being left behind in the digital age such and African Americans and Latino’s are actually keeping pace with white Americans. A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that 56% of Latino adults and 60% of African Americans go online while 71% of white Americans go online. While the number of Latino’s and African Americans going online is less than that of white American’s it is not the huge gap you may expect. Most people will agree with the notion that the digital divide is narrowing in America. What some people will disagree on however is to what end these population groups are able to utilize the full potential of the internet. It is called internet 2.0. The term Web or internet 2.0 describes the changing trends in the use of the web technology such as blogs, video sharing, networking sites and video conferencing. (Wikipedia) This web 2.0 is what still eludes many of these less affluent minority groups. Only 29% of Hispanics have home broadband connections compared with 43% of whites and 31% of African Americans. This shows the discrepancy that can occur when you only ask people if they access the internet and you fail to ask in what capacity and what for. While large numbers of minorities are able to access the internet. Many still do so on non-high speed connections and only for basic tasks. Many in these groups don’t have the connection speed or the knowledge to truly enter the digital community.

The digital divide is not only between ethnic groups but also to a much larger extent a question of age. Only 8% of Americans are considered to be web 2.0 devotes and creative participants in cyberspace. Of this top 8% of tech users the median age is 28 and the bottom 15% with the least tech use in America had a median age of 64. These statistics are especially telling because of the discrepancy in internet usage and fluency between age groups. More than income and ethnicity, age seems to play the largest factor in whether you are part of the digital community or not.

America still has a digital divide whether people want to admit it or not. In time with the maturation of the tech generation the digital divide will greatly narrow. However something has to be done to narrow it now as well. I suspect there is not a bunch we can do to get people 65+ online if they don’t want to be; however there are things we can do to get minorities and lower income families online with a high speed connection that allows them to enjoy all the uses the internet has to offer. One plan could be a coupon program where if you are below a certain income level you can get a coupon or a tax break for upgrading to broadband. This should be especially important if there are children in the house. Businesses could also be given incentives to offer their workers high speed packages especially in jobs that require any work over the internet from home. I don’t see the digital divide narrowing much further until the tech generation matures and our kids start using the internet that we grew up using.