The Divital Divide

During the post-industrial age, a time called the age of technology or the information age, computers and the Internet have brought vast resources of information and opportunity to people the world over. Communication takes place with the flick of a finger and small one-person businesses can flourish alongside the corporate giants. But some scholars wonder if these opportunities are truly equal. The division between the haves and the have-nots has been termed the Digital Divide. It is the purpose of this paper to explore the concept of the Digital Divide and to determine whether or not there is inequity in the accessibility to the Internet and all that it offers.

When looking at the demographics of Internet usage, one has to think about the nature of digital living. There is less and less dependence upon being in a specific place at a specific time (Negroponte 1995, 165). One can access email from virtually any place in the world, making communication with friends and business associates a simple matter. Writers, financiers, and business managers of all kinds may find it more agreeable to work from the Caribbean or some other pleasant, comfortable spot. All that is required is a laptop and an email address. One can even travel without one's clients knowing that one is traveling.

However, how truly universally available are the freedoms and lifestyle of traveling on the information superhighway? Jacobson comments, somewhat tongue in cheek, that there is not

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n stark contrast, a high-income household in an urban area is more than 20 times as likely as a rural, low-income household to have Internet access (Dhillon 2002, 20). As mentioned in a previous paragraph, Dhillon found that Native Americans, Eskimos, and other Asian Americans were unlikely to have telephone service and online access (2002, 20). Online access is the lowers for black households in rural areas and central cities, followed by Hispanic households in central cities and rural areas. It seems, also, that age is a factor. Very young households, people under age 25, seem to be burdened and unable to have telephones or computers. Young households with children are further handicapped as are female-headed households (Dhillon 2002, 21). Female-headed households in central cities are particularly unlikely to own computers or to have online access. Dhillon summarizes that "the data reveal that the digital divide�the disparities in access to telephones, personal computers and the Internet across certain demographic groups�still exists and in many cases has widened significantly. The gap for computers and Internet access has generally grown larger by categories of education, income and race." (2002, 21). In some ways, w

Category: Science - T