In every technologically developed country, there seems to be a widening difference between the haves and the have-nots. In the past, the difference was the ability to take long, expensive vacations, live in luxury, and the like. In recent years, however, this difference has affected cyberspace. There are the people with "the most powerful computers, the best telephone service and fastest Internet service, as well as a wealth of content and training relevant to their lives," and the people who do not have the financial ability or the training. This difference has been given many names, the technological gap, digital gap, or the digital divide.
The digital divide has been a major focus of government resources and research. Many dollars of taxpayer money has been spent in just the United States alone, and nobody has yet come up with a solution. This is because there is no easy solution to the problem; the have-nots simply do not have the resources needed to keep up with the quickly advancing industry. The United States has long been known as the country where any poor person has the chance to become one of the haves, but this "revolution" has changed the rules.
To analyze correctly the situation, one must first define what exactly the issue is. For the remainder of this paper, the difference will be referred to as simply access. The government defines the two factions as the information rich (such as Whites, Asians/Pacific Islanders, those with higher incomes, those more educated, and dual-parent households) and the information poor (such as those who are younger, those with lower incomes and education levels, certain minorities, and those in rural areas or central cities). 2 Approximately 39% of American households have access to the Internet. This is a positive statistic, although bad news comes with the good; the gap between White and Hispanic households, as well as the gap between White and Black households, is five percentage points wider in 1998 than in 1997. 4 The problem is that with every new development that has to do with computers and the internet, half the population cannot take advantage of it (including new jobs created by the new technology); and now with the ability to do things on the internet that can advance one farther in life and society, those that have not been able to take part are now forced to play "catch up" with those that have.
Another part of the problem with the digital divide is the civil responsibility to the have-nots. People use the Internet for many reasons. They use the Internet to acquire political information, to get involved in civic Web sites that help to solve community problems, to gather strength through chat rooms with others who share illnesses like cancer and AIDS, and to improve family relationships by increasing communication patterns made possible by e-mail. These are "civic benefits" of the Internet, and it is a civic irresponsibility to deny these benefits to a significant portion of the population.
The American government has taken it upon itself to remedy this situation, at least a small part. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 states that the government's primary goal in passing new legislation is to ensure that all Americans have affordable, nondiscriminatory access to communications services.3 To achieve these goals, Congress instituted regulatory changes demanding "nondiscriminatory, affordable access." While this was a valid first step, it was not enough.
The next problem to tackle was the fact that not everybody had a computer, or a phone line, to actually connect to the Internet. This was the more difficult aspect of access, the fact that computer and electronics technology was too quickly advancing and expensive for a member of the information poor to understand or afford. To tackle the training part of the information poor, many schools bought computers to teach students. Again the demographics come into play, and show that the schools that did this were in the richer areas where computers were already owned by parents of the children being taught to use them. So the majority of students that did not have computers at home were now not being taught how to use them at school. Again widening the divide. The solution was to give public access in areas of public learning, such as libraries. Another problem was that most library systems are under funded, much like the schools, resulting in computers that had Internet access but nobody was using them because the public had not been taught how to use them in school.
The national government has taken a large role to still solve the problem. President Clinton has proposed millions of dollars in tax cuts to teachers and the private sector to train students and employees in computer literacy and 21st century skills. 5 The NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) has created TOP (Technologies Opportunities Program), a program that provides start up capital for projects that use advanced telecommunications and information technology. 6 Within Congress, there are at least ten bills pending that will generate discussion on government programs to expedite Internet growth in underserved areas, such as the Education Department and low-income households.
This is the state that the digital divide is in today, every day getting wider between the haves and have-nots, giving the haves more opportunities in the world than the have-nots. Many believe this to be ethically wrong and unfair, thus the reason for government involvement, and many solutions have arisen, some, surprisingly, from the private sector, for example, the free Internet trend. Although, one doubts that the reason this was created was to solve the problem, it does help greatly. Even large corporations, such as America On-line, have chipped in. AOL has created the AOL Foundation, an organization that gives awards to recognize charitable technology programs. 7 Even Microsoft has created an organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which rewarded multiple grants to organizations including the Connected Learning Community, Working Connections, Higher Education for Minorities, and the TRIO programs. 8
The prevailing opinion on the digital divide is that it must be solved soon, before any more damage is caused. On the other side, there is the small group that believes the digital divide is "unfortunate, but inevitable." 9 Graeme Philipson wrote an article arguing this point exactly. He described the writings on the subject as "a collection of self-righteous, pompous, overwritten and under argued verbiage." He argues that the digital divide just fits into the natural human condition, by stating that no two groups of people are alike. So only 15% of the world is on the Internet, Philipson believes that the other 85% doesn't want to be on the Internet, for the most part. He believes first, one must work on inequalities in income before inequalities in technology, since the latter is reliant upon the former. "To complain about certain genders (well, one of them, anyway) and certain races having a lower representation is to succumb to the same racism and sexism that the authors so self-righteously deride."
In conclusion, one can say that there are multiple aspects and opinions on the subject of the digital divide. There are those that wish to allow everybody a fair start in the game of technology, there are those that believe the information rich are almost naturally selected, and there are those that believe that priority should first be put on poverty, only to trickle down into technology. The government seems to believe the first case, and is often trying to pass regulations, policies, and laws to enable everyone to have a fighting chance when it comes to any competition with technology, especially employment. This is the most glaring point with the divide, the fact that one might (and probably will) get a job over another, simply because of technological experience and know-how. The solution, however idealistic, is to give everyone the same opportunities to computers and the Internet, and let them figure out if they wish to progress in that field.
Appendix:
1.http://www.digitaldivide.gov/
2.http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fttn99/contents.html
3.http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v50/no1/hammond.html
4.http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/issue330/item7631.asp
5.http://www.fourthwave.com/DigDivide.htm
6.http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/top
7.http://www.aolfoundation.org/index.html
8.http://www.gatesfoundation.org/
9.http://www.it.fairfax.com.au/columns/philipson/20000620/A19946-2000Jun19.html