CCT 205

1. CCT 205 The Digital Divide

2. Digital Divide: Umbrella Term #1 • ICT-centric; focus on digital connectivity & factors that separate the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. • Focus on infrastructure, access to ICTs, use and impediments to use • No pretense to study outcomes and economic or societal impacts. • Examples: Falling through the Net series (US 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000); A Nation Online (US 2002)

3. Digital Divide:Umbrella Term #2 • Social impact of digital divide (Castells, 2001) • ICT literacy and skills required to function in an information society • Implications for social cohesion: how do these technologies produce differences in the development opportunities of those with access to these technologies and those without

4. Castells: Digital Divide • “The fundamental digital divide is not measured by the number of connections to the Internet, but by the consequences of both connection and lack of connection” (Castells, The Internet Galaxy, 2001).

5. The Divide: 3 Types • Access based on the difference between individuals with access and those without access to ICTs • Usage based on individuals who know how to use these technologies and those who do not • Usage quality based on the differences between those same users

6. Focus on Infrastructure • Possibility/difficulty of having computers available that are connected to the worldwide net • Issues involving servers, hardware and software.

7. Focus on Resource Usage • Limitation/possibility that people have to use the resources and information available on the Web. • New modes of online education, business, medical servicing, telework, entertainment and leisure

8. Focus on Capacity Building • The difference related to the skills and capacities to adequately use the technology and not only the possibility of having a computer available • Development of digital literacy

9. Optimists and Pessimists • Digital optimists believe that convergence and the emergence of more user-friendly technology will diminish the impact of the digital divide going forward. • Digital pessimists question many of these assumptions.

10. World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Geneva, 2003 • “...we believe technologies can be engaged as fundamental means, rather than becoming ends in themselves, thus recognizing that bridging the digital divide is only one step on the road to achieving development for all...”

11. Significance of the Divide: WSIS • The unequal distribution of ICTs and the lack of information access for a large majority of the world population, often referred to as the digital divide, is in fact a mapping of new asymmetries onto the existing grid of ¬social divides. These include the divide between North and South, rich and poor, men and women, urban and rural populations, those with access to information and those without. Such disparities are found not only between different cultures, but also within national borders. The international community must exercise its collective power to ensure action on the part of individual states in order to bridge domestic digital divides.”

12. Why is the Divide Important?WSIS • “The minimum capacity to appropriate information and communication technologies within a structural context of successive innovations is what makes the difference. In fact, in a world of globalization, this delay threatens to heighten all other disparities, the reason for which special attention is given to the digital divide.”

13. Consequences of the DivideWSIS • The digital divide is an expression of the social gaps. In order to understand it, it is necessary to analyze the access, usage, and social appropriation conditions of these gaps and not simply reduce comprehension to infrastructure and connectivity.”

14. Importance: WSIS • “The digital divides are given by the possibilities or difficulties that social groups have to collectively use information and communication technologies to transform reality, where the living conditions of its members are developed and improved. “

15. Closing the Divide • The divide is generally closing, but the gap between the highest and the lowest incomes persists. • Results consistent with many technologies in their early stages of adoption • Rate of growth of Internet use at lower incomes is higher than that of the higher incomes

16. Barriers to Access • Income & affordability • Evolution of the technologies • Falling prices • Social norms

17. Connectivity by Groupings • Variables of interest: income, education, age, gender, geographical location • Each of these results in the delineation of different groupings of people, with different size and other characteristics.

18. Divides • Penetration increases across incomes • Internet use increases steadily with income. By 2000, high-income individuals had achieved use rates substantially higher than those of low-income individuals. • It also increases substantially with education, the presence of children and urban areas - within each level of income. • This is true whether home-use or use from alternative access points, e.g. work, school, library and community resources.

19. Age & Internet Access • Internet use declines dramatically with age • Over 90% of teenagers use the Net • Less than 5% for individuals 70 years & older • Why? • access opportunities • skills • perceived needs • attitudes and overall lifestyles

20. Closing the Divide • By 2000, rates of Internet use from any location were already quite high for high-income sub-groups. • The use rate among households at the top income quintile, headed by someone with at least a university degree exceeded 90%, followed closely by households in the same income group with children less than 18 years old

21. Digital Inequality:5 Dimensions • Equipment: hardware, software & connections • Autonomy of use: work or home; monitored or not, compete for time or not • Skill • Social support • Purposes for which the technology is employed

22. Skills • Uneven opportunities in acquiring ICTrelated skills = key aspect of divide. • Skills viewed as a continuum whereby their technology components are incrementally built on cognitive skills and general literacy.

23. Pew Study 2006-2008 • Over half of the adult internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. But larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past, and they are doing more activities online, according to surveys taken from 2006-2008. • Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the "Net Generation," internet users in their 20s do not dominate every aspect of online life. • Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop, and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. • And even Silent Generation internet users are competitive when it comes to email

24. Pew Study 2008 • Three "thermometers" of access show the disparities among various groups when it comes to internet access, cell phone use, and broadband access at home. • The Pew Internet Project's May 2008 survey finds that 73% of adults in the U.S. go online. 78% of adults have a cell phone. 55% of adults have broadband at home. • Offline Americans are overwhelmingly over age 70, have less than a high school education, and speak a language other than English

25. Pew Study • Some 55% of all adult Americans now have a high-speed internet connection at home. • The percentage of Americans with broadband at home has grown from 47% in early 2007. • Poorer Americans saw no growth in broadband adoption in the past year while at the same time nearly one-third of broadband users pay more to get faster connections.

26. Pew Study • The biggest increase in internet use since 2005 can be seen in the 70-75 year-old age group. While just over one-fourth (26%) of 70-75 year olds were online in 2005, 45% of that age group is currently online. • For now young people dominate the online population. • Instant messaging, social networking, and blogging have gained ground as communications tools, but email remains the most popular online activity, particularly among older internet users. • 74% of internet users age 64 and older send and receive email, making email the most popular online activity for this age group. • Email has lost some ground among teens; whereas 89% of teens claimed to use email in 2004, just 73% currently say they use email.

27. Pew Study • Since 2005, broadband access has increased dramatically in the United States across all age groups, but older groups are still largely unconnected to high-speed internet. • For Americans ages 12-24, broadband access has increased by about half; • For 25-64 year olds, it has about doubled; and for seniors 65 and older, broadband access has more than tripled. • The percentage of the oldest age group to have broadband at home is still very low, however, at just 16%.

28. Pew Study • Teens and Generation Y (internet users age 18-32) are the most likely groups to use the internet for entertainment and for communicating with friends and family. • These younger generations are significantly more likely than their older counterparts to seek entertainment through online videos, online games, and virtual worlds, and they are also more likely to download music to listen to later. • Internet users ages 12-32 are more likely than older users to read other people’s blogs and to write their own; they are also considerably more likely than older generations to use social networking sites and to create profiles on those sites.2 • Younger internet users often use personal blogs to update friends on their lives, and they use social networking sites to keep track of and communicate with friends.3 Teen and Generation Y users are also significantly more likely than older generations to send instant messages to friends. • By a large margin, teen internet users’ favorite online activity is game playing; 78% of 12-17 year-old internet users play games online,4 compared with 73% of online teens who email, the second most popular activity for this age group. • Online teens are also significantly more likely to play games than any other generation, including Generation Y, only half (50%) of whom play online games.

29. Pew Study • Compared with teens and Generation Y, older generations use the internet less for socializing and entertainment and more as a tool for information searches, emailing, and buying products. • In particular, older internet users are significantly more likely than younger generations to look online for health information. Health questions drive internet users age 73 and older to the internet just as frequently as they drive Generation Y users, outpacing teens by a significant margin. Researching health information is the third most popular online activity with the most senior age group, after email and online search.

30. Pew Study • Internet users ages 33-72 are also significantly more likely than younger users to look online for religious information and they are more likely to visit government websites in search of information. Generation X (internet users ages 33-44) continues to lead in online shopping. • 80% of Generation X internet users buy products online, compared with 71% of internet users ages 18-32. Interest in online shopping is significantly lower among the youngest and oldest groups • 38% of online teens buy products online, as do 56% of internet users ages 64-72 and 47% of internet users age 73 and older.

31. Pew Study • Generation X internet users have also maintained their edge in online banking, as they are significantly more likely than any other generation to do their banking online (67%). • As Generation Y users get older, however, they have grown much more likely to bank online as well: the percentage of online Generation Y to do their banking online is up from 38% in 2005 to 57% in 2008. • At the same time, those generations older than Generation X have remained relatively equally likely as they were three years ago to use the internet to do their banking.

32. Pew Study • A wide-ranging look at the way American women and men use the internet shows that men continue to pursue many internet activities more intensively than women, and that men are still first out of the blocks in trying the latest technologies. • At the same time, there are trends showing that women are catching up in overall use and are framing their online experience with a greater emphasis on deepening connections with people.

33. Pew Study • The percentage of women using the internet still lags slightly behind the percentage of men. Women under 30 and black women outpace their male peers. However, older women trail dramatically behind older men. Men are slightly more intense internet users than women. Men log on more often, spend more time online, and are more likely to be broadband users.

34. Pew Study • More than men, women are enthusiastic online communicators, and they use email in a more robust way. • Women are more likely than men to use email to write to friends and family about a variety of topics: sharing news and worries, planning events, forwarding jokes and funny stories. • Women are more likely to feel satisfied with the role email plays in their lives, especially when it comes to nurturing their relationships. • And women include a wider range of topics and activities in their personal emails. • Men use email more than women to communicate with various kinds of organizations

35. Pew Study • Men and women also value the internet for a second strength, as a gateway to limitless vaults of information. • Men reach farther and wider for topics, from getting financial information to political news. • Along the way, men work search engines more aggressively, using engines more often and with more confidence than women.

36. Pew Study: Cultural Differences • Are there differences in how races use the Internet? • A broad study done in August 2000 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, found significant differences in Net usage between blacks and whites. • Blacks were 69 percent more likely than whites to have listened to music online, 45 percent more likely than online whites to play a game, and 12 percent more likely to “browse just for fun.” They were also nearly 40 percent more likely to have looked for information about jobs online and 65 percent more likely to seek religious information. • Whites were slightly more likely to obtain financial information, and they purchased more products over the Internet.11 However, the races were approximately equal in their use of the Net to get political news or information

37. Pew Study • Contrast white and black use of the Web with Asians, who obtain news from it at an even higher rate than whites, download music more often than blacks, and get political information more often than either blacks or whites. • Asians are also more likely than blacks to search for jobs and conduct work-related research on the Net, or to buy or sell stocks online than whites. • Asians are, however, less likely than blacks to search for health information or listen to music online.12

38. Culture and the Internet • Members of racial or ethnic groups use the Internet differently—whites more for business and product purchases, blacks more for entertainment and spiritual growth, Asians for work research and political news.

39. Race, Space and the Internet • “Falling through the Net: Toward Digital Inclusion said that in the United States, African-American and Hispanic households continue to experience the lowest Internet rates in the country (Lindsay, Poindexter, 2003). • The report revealed that 23.5 percent of African American households had Internet access in 1999 which had doubled from 11.2 percent in 1998, while Hispanic households had 23.6 percent. At the time the report was issued, Asian Americans led racial and ethnic groups in terms of households with internet usage with 56.8 percent, followed by European-American households with 46.1 percent. • Geography also plays a role in relation to racial access, with minority groups in urban areas having a slightly higher percentage rate of Internet usage over minority groups in rural areas. • African-American usage is 24 percent and Hispanic usage is 23.9 percent in urban areas, compared to 19.9 percent for both groups in rural areas (Lindsay, Poindexter, 2003).