User:Bearthedog2/Digital divide

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The digital divide is the unequal access to digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, and the internet. The digital divide's effects can be measured based on an individual's amount of time spent on the internet and skill of conducting activities online. In the Information Age in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) have eclipsed manufacturing technologies as the basis for world economies and social connectivity, people without access to the Internet and other ICTs are at a socio-economic disadvantage, for they are unable or less able to find and apply for jobs, shop and sell online, participate democratically, or research and learn.

The U.S. Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) 2019 Broadband Deployment Report indicated that 21.3 million Americans do not have access to wired or wireless broadband internet. As of 2020, BroadbandNow, an independent research company studying access to internet technologies, estimated that the actual number of United States Americans without high-speed internet is twice that amount. According to the 2021 Pew Research Center report, smartphone ownership, and internet use have increased for all Americans, however, a significant gap still exists between those with lower incomes and those with higher incomes: U.S. households earning $100K or more are twice as likely to own multiple devices and have home internet service as those making $30K or more, and three times as likely as those earning less than $30k per year. The same research indicated that 13% of the lowest income households had no access to the internet or digital devices at home compared to only 1% of the highest income households.

Since the 1920s, global movements, including a series of intergovernmental summit meetings, were conducted to close the digital divide. Since then, this movement formulated solutions in public policy, technology design, finance, and management that would allow all connected citizens to benefit equitably as a global digital economy spreads into the far corners of the world population. Though originally coined to refer merely to the matter of access —who is connected to the Internet and who is not— the term digital divide has evolved to focus on the division between those who benefit from the information and communications technologies and those who do not. Thus the aim of "closing the digital divide" now refers to efforts to provide meaningful access to Internet infrastructures, applications, and services. The matter of closing the digital divide nowadays includes the matter of how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (so-called artificial intelligence for development or AI4D), robotics, and the Internet of Things (IoT) can benefit societies. As it has become clear that the Internet can harm as well as help citizens, the focus of closing the digital divide had focused on the matter of how to generate "net benefit" (optimal help minimal harm) as a result of the impact of a spreading digital economy.

Historical background

The historical roots of the digital divide in Europe reach all the way back to the increasing gap that occurred during the early modern period between those who could and couldn't access the real-time forms of calculation, decision-making, and visualization offered via written and printed media. Within this context, ethical discussions regarding the relationship between education and the free distribution of information were raised by thinkers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Immanuel Kant, and Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). The latter advocated that governments should intervene to ensure that any society's economic benefits should be fairly and meaningfully distributed. Amid the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, Rousseau's idea helped to justify poor laws that created a safety net for those who were harmed by new forms of production. Later when the telegraph and postal systems evolved, many used Rousseau's ideas to argue for full access to those services, even if it meant subsidizing hard-to-serve citizens. Thus, "universal services" referred to innovations in regulation and taxation that would allow phone services such as AT&T in the United States hard-to-serve rural users. In 1996, as telecommunications companies merged with Internet companies, the Federal Communications Commission adopted the Telecommunications Services Act of 1996 to consider regulatory strategies and taxation policies to close the digital divide. Though the term "digital divide" was coined among consumer groups that sought to tax and regulate Information and communications technology (ICT) companies to close the digital divide, the topic soon moved onto a global stage. The focus was the World Trade Organization which passed a Telecommunications Services Act, which resisted regulation of ICT companies so that they would be required to serve hard to serve individuals and communities. In 1999, in an effort to assuage anti-globalization forces, the WTO hosted the "Financial Solutions to Digital Divide" in Seattle, USA, co-organized by Craig Warren Smith of Digital Divide Institute and Bill Gates Sr. the chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It was the catalyst for a full-scale global movement to close the digital divide, which quickly spread to all sectors of the global economy. In 2000, US president Bill Clinton mentioned the term in the State of the Union Address.

Aspects

There are manifold definitions of the digital divide, all with slightly different emphasis, which is evidenced by related concepts like digital inclusion, digital participation, digital skills, media literacy, and digital accessibility.

Infrastructure

The infrastructure by which individuals, households, businesses, and communities connect to the Internet address the physical mediums that people use to connect to the Internet such as desktop computers, laptops, basic mobile phones or smartphones, iPods or other MP3 players, gaming consoles such as Xbox or PlayStation, electronic book readers, and tablets such as iPads.

Traditionally, the nature of the divide has been measured in terms of the existing number of subscriptions and digital devices. Given the increasing number of such devices, some have concluded that the digital divide among individuals has increasingly been closing as the result of a natural and almost automatic process. Others point to persistent lower levels of connectivity among women, racial and ethnic minorities, people with lower incomes, rural residents, and less educated people as evidence that addressing inequalities in access to and use of the medium will require much more than the passing of time. Recent studies have measured the digital divide, not in terms of technological devices, but in terms of the existing bandwidth per individual (in kbit/s per capita).

As shown in the Figure on the side, the digital divide in kbit/s is not monotonically decreasing but re-opens with each new innovation. For example, "the massive diffusion of narrow-band Internet and mobile phones during the late 1990s" increased digital inequality, as well as "the initial introduction of broadband DSL and cable modems during 2003–2004 increased levels of inequality". During the mid-2000s, communication capacity was more unequally distributed than during the late 1980s, when only fixed-line phones existed. The most recent increase in digital equality stems from the massive diffusion of the latest digital innovations (i.e. fixed and mobile broadband infrastructures, e.g. 5G and fiber optics FTTH).^{[failed verification]} Measurement methodologies of the digital divide, and more specifically an Integrated Iterative Approach General Framework (Integrated Contextual Iterative Approach – ICI) and the digital divide modeling theory under measurement model DDG (Digital Divide Gap) are used to analyze the gap existing between developed and developing countries, and the gap among the 27 members-states of the European Union.

Skills and digital literacy

Research from 2001 showed that the digital divide is more than just an access issue and cannot be alleviated merely by providing the necessary equipment. There are at least three factors at play: information accessibility, information utilization, and information receptiveness. More than just accessibility, the digital divide consists of society's lack of knowledge on how to make use of the information and communication tools once they exist within a community. Information professionals have the ability to help bridge the gap by providing reference and information services to help individuals learn and utilize the technologies to which they do have access, regardless of the economic status of the individual seeking help.

Location

Internet connectivity can be utilized at a variety of locations such as homes, offices, schools, libraries, public spaces, Internet cafes, and others. There are also varying levels of connectivity in rural, suburban, and urban areas.

In 2017, the Wireless Broadband Alliance published the white paper The Urban Unconnected, which highlighted that in the eight countries with the world's highest GNP about 1.75 billion people lived without an Internet connection and one-third of them resided in the major urban centers. Delhi (5.3 million, 9% of the total population), São Paulo (4.3 million, 36%), New York (1.6 million, 19%), and Moscow (2.1 million, 17%) registered the highest percentages of citizens that weren't provided with any type of Internet access.

As of 2021, only about half of the world's population had access to the internet leaving 3.7 billion people without internet. A majority of those are from developing countries with a large portion of them being women. One of the leading factors of this is that globally different governments have different policies relating to issues such as privacy, data governance, speech freedoms as well as many other factors. This makes it challenging for technology companies to create an environment for users that are from certain countries due to restrictions put in place in the region. This disproportionately impacts the different regions of the world with Europe having the highest percentage of the population online while Africa has the lowest. From 2010 to 2014 Europe went from 67% to 75% and in the same time span, Africa went from 10% to 19%.

Network speeds play a large role in the quality and experience a user takes away from using the internet. Large cities and towns may have better access to high-speed internet than rural areas which may have limited or no service. Households can be locked into a specific service provider since it may be the only carrier that even offers service to the area. This applies to regions that have developed networks like the United States but also applies to developing countries, creating very large areas that have virtually no coverage. In instances like this, there are very limited options that a person could take to solve this since the issue is mainly infrastructure. Technologies that provide an internet connection through satellite are becoming more common, like Starlink, but are still not available for people in many regions.

Based on location, a connection may have speeds that are virtually unusable solely because a network provider has limited infrastructure in the area which emphasizes how important location is. For example, to download 5GB of data in Taiwan it would take approximately 8 minutes while the same download would take 1 day, 6 hours, 1 minute, and 40 seconds to download in Yemen.

Gender gap

Main article: Gender digital divide

Due to the rapidly declining price of connectivity and hardware, skills deficits have eclipsed barriers to access as the primary contributor to the gender digital divide. Studies show that women are less likely to know how to leverage devices and Internet access to their full potential, even when they do use digital technologies. In rural India, for example, a study found that the majority of women who owned mobile phones only knew how to answer calls. They could not dial numbers or read messages without assistance from their husbands, due to a lack of literacy and numeracy skills. In 2014, women only represented roughly 25% of the country's internet users. A survey of 3,000 respondents across 25 countries found that adolescent boys with mobile phones used them for a wider range of activities, such as playing games and accessing financial services online. Adolescent girls in the same study tended to use just the basic functionalities of their phones, such as making calls and using the calculator. Similar trends can be seen even in areas where Internet access is near-universal. A survey of women in nine cities around the world revealed that although 97% of women were using social media, only 48% of them were expanding their networks, and only 21% of Internet-connected women had searched online for information related to health, legal rights, or transport. In some cities, less than one-quarter of connected women had used the Internet to look for a job.

Studies show that despite strong performance in computer and information literacy (CIL), girls do not have confidence in their ICT abilities. According to the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) assessment, girls' self-efficacy scores (they're perceived as opposed to their actual abilities) for advanced ICT tasks were lower than boys'. This gap between men and women in technology use can be further supported by the results of an Italian study that sampled adults 65-74 years old and found that men were more likely to own a computer and use the internet. This study also explains that both the men and women reported owning mobile devices, but used them for different purposes when accessing the internet.

A paper published by J. Cooper from Princeton University points out that learning technology is designed to be receptive to men instead of women. Overall, the study presents the problem of various perspectives in society that are a result of gendered socialization patterns that believe that computers are a part of the male experience since computers have traditionally been presented as a toy for boys when they are children. This divide is followed as children grow older and young girls are not encouraged as much to pursue degrees in IT and computer science. In 1990, the percentage of women in computing jobs was 36%, however, in 2016, this number had fallen to 25%. This can be seen in the underrepresentation of women in IT hubs such as Silicon Valley.

There has also been the presence of algorithmic bias has been shown in machine learning algorithms that are implemented by major companies.^{[clarification needed]} In 2015, Amazon had to abandon a recruiting algorithm that showed a difference between ratings that candidates received for software developer jobs as well as other technical jobs. As a result, it was revealed that Amazon's machine algorithm was biased against women and favored male resumes over female resumes. This was due to the fact that Amazon's computer models were trained to vet patterns in resumes over a 10-year period. During this ten-year period, the majority of the resumes belong to male individuals, which is a reflection of male dominance across the tech industry.

Age gap

Age matters! Older adults, those ages 60 and up, face various barriers that contribute to their lack of access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Many adults are "digital immigrants" who have not had lifelong exposure to digital media and have had to adapt to incorporating it into their lives. A 2012 study found that 53% of people aged 65 and over were Internet users, compared to 82% of people aged 18 and over. This "grey divide" can be due to factors such as concern over security, motivation, and self-efficacy, a decline of memory or spatial orientation, cost, or lack of support. The aforementioned variables of race, disability, gender, and sexual orientation also add to the barriers for older adults.

Many older adults may have physical or mental disabilities that render them homebound and financially insecure. They may be unable to afford Internet access or lack transportation to use computers in public spaces, the benefits of which would be enhancing their health and reducing their social isolation and depression. Homebound older adults would benefit from Internet use by using it to access health information, use telehealth resources, shop and bank online, and stay connected with friends or family using email or social networks.

Those in the more privileged socio-economic positions and who have a higher level of education are more likely to have Internet access than those older adults living in poverty. Lack of access to the Internet inhibits "capitalism-enhancing activities" such as accessing government assistance, job opportunities, or investments. The results of the U.S. Federal Communication Commission's 2009 National Consumer Broadband Service Capability Survey shows that older women are less likely to use the Internet, especially for capital-enhancing activities, than their male counterparts. For example, poor and disadvantaged children and teenagers spend more time using digital devices for entertainment and less time interacting with people face-to-face compared to children and teenagers in well-off families. The older generation also sees a disconnection from basic digital literacy, they simply do not have the knowledge to use newer technology. Learning to use devices such as smartphones poses a difficulty for the older generation, simply because of their youth and the lack of availability to modern technology in the world today.

The age gap differs between countries. As of 2016, in the United States, the number of people 65 and over who own smartphones had risen from 18% to 42% since 2013. In Europe however, 51% of individuals over the age of 50 do not use the internet. For countries like China which is projected to be an "aged society", a country that has 14% of the population over the age of 65, there is a spotlight on decreasing the age gap and creating more inclusivity for the elderly in the digital age.

Education

The digital divide impacts children's ability to learn and grow in low-income school districts. Without Internet access, students are unable to cultivate the necessary technological skills to understand today's dynamic economy. The need for the internet starts while children are in school – necessary for matters such as school portal access, homework submission, and assignment research. The Federal Communication Commission's Broadband Task Force created a report showing that about 70% of teachers give students homework that demands access to broadband. Approximately 65% of young scholars use the Internet at home to complete assignments as well as connect with teachers and other students via discussion boards and shared files. A recent study indicates that approximately 50% of students say that they are unable to finish their homework due to an inability to either connect to the Internet or in some cases, find a computer. This has led to a new revelation: 42% of students say they received a lower grade because of this disadvantage. This academic burden comes directly from the aspect of the digital divide that is now often referred to as the "homework gap." As of 2015, a Pew Research Center analysis showed that 15% of United States households with children aged six to seventeen did not have any high-speed internet connection at home, and unfortunately these numbers are more pronounced for black and Hispanic households. According to research conducted by the Center for American Progress, "if the United States were able to close the educational achievement gaps between native-born white children and black and Hispanic children, the U.S. economy would be 5.8 percent—or nearly $2.3 trillion—larger in 2050".

As a reverse of this idea, well-off families, especially the tech-savvy parents in Silicon Valley, carefully limit their own children's screen time. The children of wealthy families attend play-based preschool programs that emphasize social interaction instead of time spent in front of computers or other digital devices, and they pay to send their children to schools that limit screen time. American families that cannot afford high-quality childcare options are more likely to use tablet computers filled with apps for children as a cheap replacement for a babysitter, and their government-run schools encourage screen time during school. Students in school are also learning about the digital divide.

During the COVID-19 Pandemic

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide issued stay-at-home orders that established lockdowns, quarantines, restrictions, and closures. The resulting interruptions in schooling, public services, and business operations drove nearly half of the world's population into seeking alternative methods to conduct their lives while in isolation. A United Kingdom-based survey shows us that around 78% of people feel that the pandemic has increased the overall necessity of digital skills. These methods included telemedicine, virtual classrooms, online shopping, technology-based social interactions, and working remotely, all of which require access to high-speed or broadband Internet access and digital technologies. A Pew Research Center study reports that 90% of Americans describe the use of the internet as "essential" during the pandemic. As life moved increasingly online, inequities created by the digital divide were exacerbated.

According to the Pew Research Center, 59% of children from lower-income families were likely to face digital obstacles in completing assignments. These obstacles included the use of a cell phone to complete homework, having to use public WiFi because of unreliable service in the home, and a lack of access to a computer in the home. This difficulty titled the homework gap, affects more than 30% of K-12 students living below the poverty threshold and disproportionally affects American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, and Hispanic students.

A lack of "tech readiness", that is, confident and independent use of devices, was reported among the elderly; with more than 50% reporting an inadequate knowledge of devices and more than one-third reporting a lack of confidence. This aspect of the digital divide and the elderly became more concerning during the pandemic as healthcare providers increasingly relied upon telemedicine to manage chronic and acute health conditions.

The pandemic also caused a digital divide between organizations that were or were not able to invest in digital technologies. Firms with more than 50 workers were more likely to begin investing in implementing or improving digital technologies than smaller firms. Organizations that invested in both advanced and basic digital technologies were also most likely to outperform during the pandemic. Small businesses were the most likely to fall behind, and less likely to have boosted their digital investments.