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The Digital Divide Essay

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Digital divide: This is the gap between those who have computer and internet access and those who do not. This is also whether people are computer and technology literate or not and whether they have these facilities available to them.

Digital inclusion: This describes efforts made to help ensure everyone is able to understand and enjoy the use of computers and the internet and the attempts made to reduce the digital divide. Digital inclusion involves citizens being able to use online facilities and know how to use them etc

The digital divide is caused by many things. A main cause of the digital divide is income level and cost meaning that people with a lower income are disadvantaged in that they may not be able to afford a …show more content…

Democracy is also a factor effected by the digital divide since it may be easier for those with the benefit of technology to take part in elections and making decisions than those without.

Economic growth is effected by the digital divide because productivity improvements tend to be associated with the use of Information technologies and companies with these technologies may have advantage and can compete better.

One initiative to close the digital divide is to more openly provide technology within the education sector an example is the 2005 initiative to educate children using online facilities etc within schools and colleges. This is one of many initiatives, the most effective initiative is to provide technology in public places such as libraries and to have centers where people can learn ICT (2000). This is not just applied to the UK, this is a global initiative and also developing countries can benefit from the centres. Funding has been given for disadvantaged communities so that there is more fairer spreas of the benefits.

Over the last 3 years the digital divide has in my opinion been narrowing this is because more and more people in developing countries are being provided with the access to computers and technology which without funding they would otherwise not have. More people in developing countries are able to use a computer and this reduces the gap in the digital divide globally even though

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