Digital Divide: An Electic Effect On Social Justice

The term “digital divide” was coined to define this growing gap between the people who do not have access to modern technology (more specifically the poor, rural, elderly, and handicapped) and the people who do (wealthy, middle class, and those living in urban/suburban areas). In urban areas especially, a common assumption made is that everyone has access to this modern technology. People see technology all around them and assume it is integrated into everyone’s life. Because of the simplicity technology offers, it has become the engine behind economics, politics, and communication. In rural areas, most people know the potential of modern technology, but don’t have the resources to achieve it. “It has been observed that households earning incomes over $75,000 are 20 times more likely to have home internet access than those at lowest income levels and 10 times more likely to have a

One detrimental consequence of the technological society we live in is the development of new power struggles that reveal themselves in the digital divide. In the dawning of the technological age that has brought us into a globalized

Thus, the problem in concern is not simply having access or not. People who suffer from this gap in the use of digital technologies are believed to lose certain social and financial benefits (McFadden, 2017), and this is not unique in Australia. In a 2014 Dutch survey, van Deursen and van Dijk (2014, p.520) identified that the lower educated people, though surprisingly used the Internet more than their more educated counterparts, were less likely to utilise the Internet for information and personal development. This means that possessing suitable skills and attitude may be more important than having access to digital technologies when it comes to benefitting the

Apart from all other forms of media the growth of the internet since the 1990's has had agreat impact on the sudden explosion of communications where any kind of messages can be uploaded uncensored to any kind of audience. For the first time in history people from all walks of live and from every corner of the world are interacting on a new level. This is a magnificent development but the negative repercussion is that it works against the people of color and support the

Within society people who make less income are less likely to use the internet. The theory that will support my research will be of conflict perspective which focus on the social perspective that holds that stratification is dysfunctional and harmful in society, with inequality perpetuated because it benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. When the poor goes without the internet it burdens them, to not use the internet. Social systems such as the internet gives people the ability to bring their life chances up to make more income, better their situation, and also helps their children see a better future ahead. The conflict perspective can be used to explain the how inequalities without the can cause damage to a community.

Since the launch of the Internet as a global communication network and the boom in communication technologies, our world has been overwhelmed by a new phenomenon – digital divide. It has gradually turned into a major, constantly growing world issue, threatening to further increase the gap between advanced and developing countries. Yet, is digital divide really an unprecedented occurrence or a natural and unavoidable trend? “Divide” is certainly a word whose meaning could be traced back to the mere dawn of human history. It goes even deeper – to human nature itself: to sex and racial differentiation, to unequal physical and mental powers, to different

In the article, Intended and Unintended Consequences of Educational Technology on Social Inequality, the authors, Andrew A. Tawfik, Todd D. Reeves, and Amy Stich talk about the inequalities that students that come from low socioeconomic background face. The authors state how although there is programs that the government provides to students that live in disadvantaged areas such as “Head Start”, they still face inequality due to the lack of resources when comparing to more privilege areas/schools. They bring the topic of technology, discussing how technology play a tremendous role in students life, and how the schools that don’t have sufficient technology resources automatically fall behind. The authors also bring the issue of how the government

Since its introduction on a public scale in the 1990s, the internet has been associated with many changes in social experience. Many aspects of social life such as education, work, commerce and even personal relationships have changed through the internet. However, researchers have found that, at least in the early years, access to the internet is shaped according to gender, class, ethnicity and education. During the 1990s the typical information technology user was a white, male, professional with a background in IT. This bias in internet access was named the ‘digital divide’ to point out the implied social inequalities. It was said that the internet was

Hess and Leal examine the legislation that has been passed in order to bridge the Digital Divide and the effects, both negative and positive. Racial inequality within the Digital Divide is also discussed along with how socio-economic status effects computer and Internet access.

The second article titled “Digital Inequality: From Unequal Access to Differentiated Use” by Paul DiMaggio, Eszter Harittai, Coral Celeste, and Steven Shafer is about the Inequality with internet access and how it is a

Imagine a world divided by those who can afford technology and those who cannot. Those that have access to technology are the richest in the world, and those that do not are stuck in poverty with no way to improve their economic status. It sounds like the starting lines of a Hollywood movie but it is a growing issue in America and abroad. The digital divide is the divide or gap between people who have access to technology and those that do not. The divide is creating problems for schools who require more and more assignments to be done on a computer. Also, having the internet is having the power of information and knowledge that not everyone has the ability to access. Other countries suffer from the digital divide at a staggering percentage compared to US, UK and Europe. (Crawford)

Whilst there currently is lacking evidence to indicate a decline in other forms of social disparity due to computer and Internet access, these members at the adverse end of social classes are not benefiting through this digital emergence. Thus their position is remaining the same. On the other end of the spectrum however, there are indicators suggesting this emergence is helping to secure or even increase the favorable social position of these in higher social classes. Thus the digital divide is arguable contributing towards further divisions among social classes, enhancing not only economic division, but social hierarchy on a national and international scale.

2) Rapid development of information technology has a huge impact on our society. On the one hand innovations make our lives easier by automating manual and cognitive task, but on the other hand the development of information technology causes further inequality and unemployment (Brynjolfsson & McAfee 2014).

As I was researching and looking around for ideas to write this research paper about, one subject that piqued my interest was the digital divide. I had seen a digital divide in my previous job of working for the local public library in my hometown. The digital divide is more or less the difference in the rates that people utilize computers, the internet and other forms of information and communication technology, otherwise referred to as ICT (Wong, 2009). The digital divide in essence describes the social inequity in accessing ICT between individuals in society (Ritzhaupt, 2013). Our library was pretty much the only public access point in the county where individuals could come and utilize free computers and internet access. I saw many people who had no other access to technology come in and use the library for educational purposes, job searches and applications, and conduct general business. As the teen specialist, I was over the Teen Advisory Board, and I came to understand the economic circumstances some of the teens who were coming to the library were dealing with on a daily basis. Often times, without the library, they would have no means to complete their school work. I know that we had one teen who came in to the use the computers because his parents had to pawn his computer to pay the rent one month. Where the trouble comes in though, is that several years ago the library was in danger of closing. Most people don’t realize that while public libraries do

The main question is that whether my country is equitable information society or not. What does it mean by equitable information society? To answer this question, it should first precisely be clarified the meaning of equality and also the more problematic term in social science, inequality. Classical and contemporary social theorists such as Weber, Marx and Burdieu expose it to discussion. In this sense, society is seen as a stratification system that is based on a hierarchy of power (the ability to direct someone else’s behavior), privilege (honor and respect), and prestige (income, wealth, and property), which leads to patterns of social inequality (Crossma, n.d.). There are two main paradigms which aim to theorize inequality in context