Issues Concerning the Digital Divide Essay

It is most often referred to as the divide between “those with access to new technologies and those without” (Irving) or between “haves and have-nots”(Hecht) in terms of information technologies. However, using “access” to define digital divide is quite improper, since an opportunity to log on to the Web does not imply knowledge to use it efficiently. For example, situation in an underdeveloped country will not improve dramatically even if new technologies were artificially integrated in its economy, unless people have the proper skills to utilize them successfully. Likewise, the suitability of the second definition could also be questioned, as information should be measured in terms of quality, rather than of quantity, because specific information with exact economic value is what really matters in e-commerce (Foster 442-43). Probably the best way to characterize digital divide is as the growing social and economic disparities between the rich and the poor.

The digital divide that is prominent in today’s society is sky rocketing daily, especially in Canada. Unfortunately, Internet will never be a free service and we never expect it to be; but, Coalition member ACORN Canada, a national organization of low- and moderate-income families, is calling on the CRTC to mandate that $10 per month high-speed internet packages be made available to families and individuals living below Statistics Canada's low-income measure (Goodyear, 2016). Some solutions consist of higher-earning Canadians paying a little extra on their own internet bills - about a dollar a month - to subsidize access for those who can't afford it. (Goodyear, 2016). I personally believe that this solution is risky because it would unfair if other Canadians have to pay

Income inequality is the unspoken truth of American life. Millions of Americans live in poverty while the minority holds the majority of the wealth. This problem has become more severe in recent years, with the wealth gap increasing exponentially. While innovation drives economics in the free market, recent innovations have caused the wealth gap to become skewed. Broadband Internet is one particular innovation that has spurred economic growth but has hurt the lower class. Broadband Internet can be defined as “768 Kbps download and 200 Kbps upload” (Dunbar). Although there are many varying classification of broadband Internet, this definition will be utilized for the purposes of this paper. The non-adoption of broadband Internet by those living

This report will examine how changes in technology are affected by society, in turn, how the society that produced this technology is impacted by this creation. The paper will specifically address the impact of personal computers, cell phones, and the internet on society, and how these technological advancements relate to the three major sociological perspectives; equilibrium model, digital divide, and cultural lag.

Of the students analyzed within Hargittai’s (2010) research, they were characterized based on race, gender, ethnicity and so on—variables that have little to do with a person’s understanding for the Internet. The purpose was to understand how different types of people incorporate the Internet into their lives, and then compare these results with the number of laptops, number of access locations, and the differences in how these groups use the web. However, this combination of variables measured by Hargittai is not logical for the question at hand. Wouldn’t it be just as important to understand how many desktop computers these individual students owned, as well? Perhaps some students prefer a desktop computer to that of a laptop. Isn’t it also more likely that a student who enjoys the Internet, or the use of a computer, would try to get his or her hands on a laptop versus a student who does not enjoy the computer or the Internet?

In our generation a like without Internet is pretty unthinkable. We look at the way it makes things so much easier and helps us stay in contact with friends and relatives via email and/or social media. Robert McChensey noticed how the Internet has caused a lot of changes in America in many different aspects Users and creators of the internet predicted that it would cause the world to be more prosperous , a more equal society, and a significant amount of scientific discovery. Internet supporters and skeptics agreed and opposed this idea. McChesney writes that people do not have a clear understanding of how capitalism relates to the internet and the political economic contex of the internet

Another outstanding feature of Estonia’s digital transformation is the data security and data privacy. By logging into the State Portal, residents can easily see which X-Road participants hold their information, which can access it, and which have accessed it. A Data Protection Inspectorate enforces proper usage, which allows the residents themselves to and take action themselves if they suspect a violation. In other words, individuals are owning all their data and have power over it.

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

The digital divide is related to the access that certain people have to the knowledge and the resources necessary to keep up with society or to better their lifestyle. Researches has indicated that people from different socio-economic groups have limited access to technologies like unlimited internet access, the latest smartphones, or IPads which limits their personal and professional development. These restrictions contribute to what is known as the digital divide. Simply put, the digital divide is the division of knowledge and resources between the haves and the have-nots. The digital divide does exist but this should not be an excuse for people not to learn. As learned in our Principles of Adult Education class, adult learning can take place anywhere and anytime. People can learn in a classroom, on the job, or at home but learning is a contact sport and people have to want to

The “information society”, American society was transformed by the introduction and access to the World Wide Web and the use of personal computers that created a communications revolution for American business and personal use as well. This “information society” came to rely on an interconnected information, business, commerce, communication, entertainment “Genie”. Although internet and personal computers were at the forefront front of this revolution, cell phones fax machines, and wireless modems were part of the “information society” explosion as well. Because this new technology was becoming affordable and available to the masses, the public for the first time could access vast amounts unfiltered information. For example, from the comfort of their

Throughout this essay I will be discussing how the digital age has transformed society in many ways. The digital age also known as the information age, is the evolution of technology in daily life and social organizations have led to the fact that the modernization of information and communication processes has become the driving force of social evolution.” This is a time period in which we live in now where Internet and email are available; this is an example of the digital age. The Information Age is the idea that access to and the control of information is the defining characteristic of this current era in human civilization.

Imagine a world where geographic separation does not inhibit the social or economic mobility of people. A place where cement roads are obsolete and unnecessary and the information super highway is the only road you need to know how to navigate. Information technology becomes the glue and nails that binds our (global) society together. Development becomes a matter of installing fiber-optic wiring, cellular towers and satellite launching. World Bank projects change from road building to wire laying. Now imagine a world where there is no electricity, telephones, computers, roads or other mediums of transportation other than legs and feet. Communication exists on a face-to-face level and nothing more. An individuals’

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

I have also learned that there is something called a "Digital Divide" that pertains to the different relative access to online information and applications available to different populations,

| With internet usage and commonly used now than a few years ago, digital divide is mostly defined as the gap between those individuals and communities that have, and do not have access to the information technologies that are transforming our lives and that is the usage of the internet. With the education system moving toward doing all their school work through the computer, the digital divide also exists between the educated and the uneducated, between economic classes, and, globally, between the more and less industrially developed nations.