Digital Divide

By Author: Henry Ford
Total Articles: 189
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Digital divide
Digital divide is among the new terms that have emerged in reference to globalization and application of new technology. It has been used in reference to the inequalities existing in the world. Application of emerging information and communication is today used to measure development of the society. This means that digital divide can also be used to assess how developed a society is in comparison to other societies. With information and communication technologies becoming a part of life, digital divide has become an important concern since it gives an expression of the wellbeing of any given society.
Digital divide refers to the gap between people who have effective access to modern digital and information technology and those who have minimal access. It refers to the existing gap between individuals, households, businesses, and geographical regions, at different social economic levels, in regard to their existing opportunity to access and use information and communication technologies, especially the internet (Terry). Digital divide refers to the different aspect of the existing gap. It refers ...
... to the imbalances in physical access to digital technology and also imbalances in resources and skills which are needed for one to participate in digital citizenship. Therefore, digital divide refers to the unequal access by some people in the society to new technologies and unequal access to application of the related skills. Digital divide is also closely related to divide in knowledge since inadequacy in access to technology is replicated in inadequacy in skills. Globally, digital divide is used to describe the gap in technology access and application between countries.
As was mentioned, digital divide can be expressed in different ways, geographically, on sex bases, on individuals, and on other bases. It should be noted that over the years, some of these aspects of digital divide have been closed. For example during the 20th century, sex digital divide was prevalent in United States. More men had access to information and communication technology compared to women. However, by the end of the century, women surpassed men and became majority of the online population sex digital divide disappeared (Terry). This has been the case for United States but in most other countries sex digital divide still exist. It is widely believed that digital divide still exist in United States. In areas of education, there has been considerable difference in access to and use of information and communication technology. Research evidence points out that some school especially those in areas inhabited by African Americans have lower access to information and communication technology compared to other schools. In the 1990s, there were massive programs which were meant to increase school computer access. However, this brought about a new dimension in digital divide where attention was focused where students were actually using available computers rather than whether computers in the school had internet connections. E-Rate program was authorized in 1996 and started to be implemented in 1997. It addressed ICT gap between rich and poor school and it was meant to improve ICT facilities in poor school the program has been credited with increasing the number of public classrooms with internet connection from 14% in 1996 to 95% in 2005 (Terry).
Statistics reveal a grim picture of status of digital divide in the world. In 2004, statistics showed that less than 3 in every 100 Africans used internet compared to 1 in every 2 inhabitants of developed countries like Canada, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, Russia, UK, and United States (WSIS). The number of internet users in G8 countries combined equaled the total number of internet user in all non-G8 countries combined. Statistics also shows that the leading 20 countries which have internet bandwidth are home to more than 80% of the internet users in the world. In 2004, there were more than 30 countries where internet penetration was less than 1% (WSIS). It was also revealed that United States had more than twice the number of internet users than all the other 42 countries in American continent combined. In Asia-Pacific, statistics showed that internet penetration ranges from 1% in Bangladesh and Cambodia to 65% in Australia and Republic of Korea. Penetration of mobile phones ranges from 1% in Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar to more than 90% in China and Singapore (WSIS). This is a just a glimpse of manifestation of the digital divide in the world. It shows that digital divide is prevalence inter-continently and intra-continently.
Research has found a correlation between access and use of information and national development. As technology emerges to play a central role in our life, there are important areas that could be improved by access to information. Important social, political, and economic area like international commerce, education, health, justice, governance, and others can be influenced by the change in access to information. For example one aspect in assessment of poverty and under-development in sub-Saharan Africa has been constructed around access to and use of information and communication technology. Sub-Saharan Africa is still in the infancy period in development of ICT and this has lead to social-political and economic realities. Statistic released by United Nation on ICT showed that in 2001, sub-Saharan Africa had 816 million people (Chidiebere). About 1 in 4 people had access to radio while 1 in 13 had access to TV. 1 in every 13 people owned mobile phones while 1 in every 40 had fixed telephone line. Only 1 in every 160 people used internet and 1 in every 400 had installed pay TV (Chidiebere). This data could have changed plenty much in the last one decade but it shows the extent of digital divide in sub-Saharan Africa compared to the rest of the world.
Digital divide has a lot of implications on e-government and e-democracy. Although the two concepts are on the early phase of development, most scholars also agree that emerging ICT tools like blogs, wikis, mailing lists, and many others have a greater role to play in democracy and government (Terry). They are used as important tools that enable people to share information on governance and democracy. They tools form a virtual community in which people can share information on governance. The increased use of e-government to access government services has an impact on digital divide since those who have lower access to internet cannot fully participate in e-governance. In addition, countries which have low access to internet services are less likely to learn about best practices in governance and democracy. They are not in a position to participate in the public space, which is currently emerging in the cyber space.
There are no shortcuts to bridge digital divide in the world. The only solution narrows down to increased availability of ICT to those who have lower access. Initiatives like E-Rate in United States have helped to bridge digital divide but inter-continently, digital divide is still a major problem. There should be policy initiatives that will assist developing countries to acquire ICT at lower cost since their major constrain is resources. In addition, it is important to come up with strategies that will increase the number of ICT experts in areas with low access to ICT to ensure that they not only have ICT devices but also knows how to use them.

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