Talk:Digital divide/Archive 1

Cleanup
I have begun the process of cleaning up this article, initially by adding more sections.

The text itself needs editing - it is too verbose, and textbookish.

The article would benefit from some illustrative graphs, showing world regions affected by the digital divide, and possibly relating them to economic indicators for those regions.

A short discussion about methods/technologies used to address the divide would be useful, but without going into too many details - many of the methods/technologies/products have independent articles on Wikipedia and we should link to those. Achitnis 14:29, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is poorly written. I would suggest a translation of the article out of Bad Writing into at least Acceptable Writing, if someone can find the time (i.e. a rewrite). 66.240.10.170 06:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

wiareport.org external link
I removed this as it was added by the institution that "owns" the project:
 * World Information Access Project tracks digital divide trends and produced an annual report

It looks like it could be good information but I haven't heard of it before and the presentation is very "bloggy" making it difficult (on a very brief look at least) to see what is finished research and what is untested information and opinion. Other editors should take a look and see what they think.

While we're on the subject the external links section could do with pruning and focusing. It's a bit of a jumble at the moment. --Siobhan Hansa 23:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Advantages and Disadvantages
It would be nice if some information on the benefits and drawback from narrowing the digital divide gap, as well as a few impacts the digital divide causes. 81.106.116.14 00:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Responses to "Digital Divide" by Bolt and Crawford
According to Bolt and Crawford, education has changed dramatically in the past 25 years, changing towards a society based dramatically on computer education and advanced connectivity, but classrooms have became overcrowded and harder to reach out to the students.

The digital divide is the separation between books and a computer. Some students go to the internet to find an answer to a homework problem intead of going to a book and looking for the answer and understanding it.

Since more information is available with new technology, it is easier to specialize education to specific needs, but since teachers don't have the training required or access this information effectively, a lot of this advantage is lost.

The cost of the computers and the programs which also have to be updated regularly increases the cost of tehcnology. Computer funding takes away from the other programs throughout the school.

Joyced 18:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The two articles should be combined. "Digital Divide" would be a good introduction to the "Global Digital Divide" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kebateman08 (talk • contribs) 22:49, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

University of Pittsburgh Digital Citizenship project
Graduate class of Fall 07 in Digital Citizenship, University of Pittsburgh, will improve this article, aiming for GA/FA status by the end of the year. Members: The project has ended. While the article has not reached a GA level, it has been improved close to it (before after). Thanks to all who contributed (including of course many editors unaffiliated with the project!). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 12:47, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) User:Piotrus, task coordinator

Related issues
I have moved this glorified 'see also' section from talk.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:58, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Other issues include the following:
 * gender issues
 * disability issues
 * role of language
 * cultural inequality regarding the content available on the World Wide Web
 * the role of educators in reducing the digital divide in the classroom

Challenges and social detriments
I am moving this unreferenced section added by an anon from main body to talk. It seems somewhat WP:ORish to me.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 03:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Some observers have noted social challenges arising from the global spread of the Internet, including:
 * Unwanted information: The Internet provides a platform for the rapid distribution of information. Some of that information is unwanted by certain groups, such as pornography, allegedly obscene or immoral information, or offensive language; some of that information is unwanted by certain governments, such as news from a variety of sources, which may break an information monopoly previously held by state (propaganda) media; and some of that information is unwanted by nearly everyone, such as e-mail spam and computer viruses. Opponents of this view believe that the best answer to the uncontrolled flow of information that you disagree with is to either not listen to it or to promote your own ideas in the free marketplace of ideas.
 * "Quality" of communications: The Internet allows rapid communication between more people, but some believe that this is leading interpersonal communications to become shallow and staged. Others feel that the Internet allows people to hide behind their computers and express "hateful", "offensive", "damaging", or otherwise unwanted opinions that they wouldn't ordinarily communicate in person. Indeed, Internet communications provide increased opportunities for anonymous expression.
 * Alleged cultural imperialism: The Internet makes it easier to exchange cultural ideas and values. Some cultures can perceive this exchange to be detrimental to them, especially where a culture is struggling to preserve its ways, and trying to shield their children from content they believe to be "immoral", "materialistic", and "antisocial". Others counter that no one is forcing people from other cultures to subscribe to extracultural information flows, and that they do so of their own free will, whereas genuine imperialism is based on force and coercion.
 * Content inequality: There are still huge gaps not only in Internet accessibility, but content. Internet content in some languages is seriously lacking or virtually non-existent. This can economically "leave behind" whole groups of people, but more importantly allow economically aggressive outsiders to move in on their territory. Others advocate that groups without content on the Internet should create content or digitize their own non-digital content, to address any perceived imbalances.
 * Privacy: Some critics question why governments spy on or monitor the Internet, especially when they do so outside of a legal framework; some governments question the use of the Internet to "spy" on previously disconnected countries; some governments fear that the Internet and the ending of state information monopolies and information asymmetry could be result in social or political unrest within their nations.
 * Control: ARPA, an agency of the U.S. Government, created the ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet; due to this, certain centralized services, especially the DNS system of Internet domain names, are under the oversight of the US government. This is controversial; some critics of ICANN believe that control of these centralized services should be turned over to an international body such as the United Nations, or to regional Internet registries, or to alternative DNS roots. Some critics of the proposal to replace US control of ICANN with UN control believe that the US Government has administered the Internet in a technically and politically neutral fashion, even allowing governments hostile to it (such as Cuba, the People's Republic of China, Iran, etc.) to participate fully in the registration of names and the governance of their own top-level domains. These critics believe that the United Nations, being a union of democratic and undemocratic member states, might attempt to use any control ceded by ICANN to further censor the Internet. Many countries, including the United States, have used state control to censor the internet in the past.

National interest and social benefit
I have cut this section; it is unreferenced and whats worse, various points were added by multiplie editors over the past years, making it a rather incoherent OR.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 03:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

There are a variety of arguments about why closing the digital divide is important. The major arguments are as follows:


 * 1) Economic equality: Some think that access to the Internet is a basic component of civil life that some developed countries aim to guarantee for their citizens. Telephone service is often considered important for the reasons of security. Health, criminal, and other types of emergencies may indeed be handled better if the person in trouble has access to a telephone. Also important seems to be the fact that much vital information for education, career, civic life, safety, etc. is increasingly provided via the Internet, especially on the web. Even social welfare services are sometimes administered and offered electronically.
 * 2) Social mobility: If computers and computer networks play an increasingly important role in continued learning and career advancement, then education should integrate technology in a meaningful way to better prepare students. Without such offerings, the existing digital divide hinders children of lower socio-economic status, particularly in light of research showing that schools serving these students in the USA usually utilize technology for remediation and skills drilling due to poor performance on standardized tests, rather than for more imaginative and educationally demanding applications.
 * 3) Social equality: As education integrates technology, societies such as in the developing world should also integrate technology to improve life. This will reduce the gender inequalities. Access to information through internet and other communication tools will improve her life chances and enable her to compete globally with her Contemporaries even in the comfort of her rural settings.
 * 4) Democracy: Use of the Internet has implications for democracy. This varies from simple abilities to search and access government information to more ambitious visions of increased public participation in elections and decision making processes. Direct participation (Athenian democracy) is sometimes referred to in this context as a model.
 * 5) Economic competitiveness and growth: The development of information infrastructure and active use of it is inextricably linked to economic growth. Information technologies in general tend to be associated with productivity improvements even though this can be debatable in some circumstances. The exploitation of the latest technologies is widely believed to be a source of competitive advantage and the technology industries themselves provide economic benefits to the usually highly educated populations that support them. The broad goal of developing the information economy involves some form of policies addressing the digital divide in many countries with an increasingly greater portion of the domestic labor force working in information industries.
 * 6) National Security: It has been speculated that the Digital Divide leaves those most susceptible to terrorism with no other options. Because they are being left behind, they rebel against modern society through acts of terrorism.

External link: Published article in Greek regarding the digital devide between rural and urban areas.
So basically this a published article in an IT magazine... it is extensive, it was added in the external links, but it is in Greek, so unless someone can speak Greek (and since there isn't a corresponding article in the Greek Wikipedia), then...? Should it stay or should it go - and if yes, is the current presentation proper? Please advise and discuss... thanks MarekTT (talk) 22:54, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * is a blog, so the reliability is an issue. A non-English source can be used as a reference, or in an article dedicated to non-English issue, but it doesn't seem useful here. As we have recently pruned the overgrown elink section, we should be careful not to add such links; I will go ahead and remove it.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge from Global digital divide
I suggested a merge. The other article fails to reference the distinction of "global".--Kozuch (talk) 00:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

120 mobile subscribers per 100 inhabitants??
I would just like to point out that it seems rather illogical to have more subscribers then inhabitants. So either the y axis on the graph should max out at 100 or the graph should be renamed using "mobile subscriptions" which is nothing else entirely.--Thorseth (talk) 17:08, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Not entirely illogical. Some people have multiple mobile devices (work phone, personal phone, etc), and it also might reflect institutional subscriptions. Further, the graph is easier to read with a y axis above the upper limit of the data. -- Zim Zala Bim talk  17:13, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say that a subscriber is a person/cooperation. Corporations could in principle account for an over unity rate but I highly doubt that this should be the case, since most countries have vastly more people than companies. The thing is 97% is very high percentage - how do they account for babies and very elderly people. If the number is "subscriptions" then it makes allot more sense, with many people having multiple subscriptions as you point out. The original graph has the same captioning (and 100% max). But I suspect that they don't distinguish between subscriptions and subscribers, I find the distinction important but I am not an native English speaker so it might be a question of semantics. It seems to me that the graph suggests that the developed world has 97 people owning a mobile phone for every 100 citizen, and this is clearly not the case.--Thorseth (talk) 18:29, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Merging the two
I think that the two entries should be merged because they deal with the same topic and provide a complete picture of the issues surrounding the topic. Hkfiedler (talk) 22:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)Hkfiedler

I think that the two entries should be merged because they talk about the same concept. This will provide a more complete explanation for the topic on the digital divide and also will reach more people about how this divide occurs all over the world instead of only here in the U.S. Acbuga (talk) 22:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)acbuga

Age
Don't age differences contribute to the Digital Divide? Many senior citizens, including my mother, cannot effectively use technology that emerged since 1980. 155.84.57.253 (talk) 16:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I totally agree, e.g. in the use of modern social media, the age difference is a much bigger distinguishing factor than either gender or race. This section needs to be added. Sigma0 1 (talk) 23:45, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Jesse Jackson comments
I marked the Jackson opinion with a cite needed tag, as this is clearly direct information from something(s) he said, so we need evidence of that. Having said that, I'm not entirely certain it belongs in the article, as I'm not sure that Jackson's opinions on digital divide rise to enough of an importance to include a whole paragraph on, per WP:DUE. Jackson is an important political figure, but I don't think he's particularly closely associated with digital divide. I'm interested to hear what others think, though. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:26, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Qwyrxian that this quote seems a little out of place. Moreover, it doesn't add any clarity to the topic. Does anyone object to me deleting the section? Padmin22 (talk) 18:18, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow, I totally forgot about this comment. After looking at it again, I still think it needs to go.  It definitely doesn't go in that section, because it has nothing to do with the origins of the term "digital divide".  The middle part about Rainbow/PUSH has nothing to do with digital divide; and the end part is based a phone interview, and Jackson doesn't even use the term "digital divide"--he's just talking about meeting with Silicon Valley about hiring more women and minorities.  Employment in the tech sector isn't actually what digitial divide is about--just ownership of computers.  In other words, the interviewer misused the term, and applied it in a situation where the interviewee didn't even use the word.  The only thing left connecting Jackson to this is the first sentence and his use of the term "apartheid".  I'm going to take out the whole paragraph, although if someone wants to rescue that first sentence and move it somewhere else, feel free.  Qwyrxian (talk) 21:29, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Cleaning of new additions based on Robinson
At first I was going through the new additions and trimming and copy-editing. But then I realized that they're all almost entirely based on a single journal article. While such work is acceptable for a school project (which is where I think this came from), Wikipedia articles should not have too much information from a single source. Basically, the may paragraphs all based on this one author give Robinson's opinions on digital divide what we call undue weight. That is, it over-emphasizes Robsinson's opinion/analysis, even though Robinson is just one of a very large number of authors exploring this subject. Instead, I cut it down to 1 paragraph. If I understand Robinson's article accurately, she discusses two main things: the temporal and emotional costs to low SES students, and the results of those costs. I think I understood "temporal costs" and the results well enough to make a brief summary, but not "emotional costs". That's primarily because the info previously in the article did not appear to come directly from Robinson (both the style and content did not match an academic paper). We need a one sentence summary of what "emotional cost" means for Robinson, and then we can insert that into the paragraph. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:55, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

School Project?
I would really like to know if this article is being used as a place for a school project, as we've had a number of new editors come and add information that is somewhat close to Wikipedia style, but is actually a lot closer to school essay style. This information is, in some cases, duplicating other information, or is overlong, or is not properly sourced. Now, as an educator myself, I love the idea of students working on Wikipedia articles in school. But it can be challenging, and requires some good guidance to the teacher (we even have a project set up to help teachers in this regard). I would strongly request that, if this is, in fact, a school project, that the teacher identify xyrself, and I'd be happy to talk about how we can make sure that this works out well for both the students and the article. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:17, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Gender?
The section about "gender" really doesn't have anything to do with gender, it doesnt even mention gender, What should the title be changed to? --Fulizer (talk) 09:30, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It talks about how digital divide applies with reference to gender--that is, the "divide" between the way women and men access the internet (in numbers and style). That seems to be about gender to me.  Qwyrxian (talk) 12:10, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Origin of the term
On the Thanet District Council website, it says that Councillor Simon Moores is credited with the term "digital divide". http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=169 Could there be any substance to this claim? How does a district council website rate as a reliable source? pgr94 (talk) 19:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The Thanet District Council gives no date or reference for the quote as to the first use of the term. District council websites (UK or otherwise) are of such diverse quality that it would be impossible to make a general statement about their admissibility as a 'reliable source', I would think. It has to be decided on a case-to-case basis; in this case probably 'no'. Sleuth21 (talk) 14:45, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Length of article
This has been mentioned before but I think that the arcticle in its present is still much too long and doesn't read easily. There are too many casual looking asides, speculative remarks, and details, and it cites some very un-authoritative looking references. It has in part the feel of a textbook / high-school essay, not an encyclopaedic article. So many groups of people are mentioned as being affected that one could just as well say that 'the digital divide potentially affects everybody'.Sleuth21 (talk) 14:45, 25 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes. The problem is that, for some reason, this article was used by about 6 or 7 different editors to fulfill a class assignment late last year (if my memory is correct). These students did not have, I think, the interests of Wikipedia in mind when they dumped their essays into the article.  this significantly increased the length of the article and number of different topics covered.  I tried to get rid of the essay-like language where I could, but it came awfully fast at one point so I didn't get everything as trimmed as it could be.  Unfortunately, a number of the sources used are print or paywall sources, which I don't have access to, so it was hard for me to tackle some of those.  What the article probably needs is a massive overhaul, combining different sections together.  To be fair, a lot of the info added was very useful and worthy of inclusion in the article; it's just that it needs to be re-organized and trimmed to improve the overall article.  An alternative approach may be to consider breaking the article into sub-articles, if we think that most of it should be preserved.  I don't have time myself to start a big overhaul project, but you're welcome to!  If you want, feel free to go right at the article and start making changes, although if it's more complex or involves significant removal, it may be better to discuss here first.  I'll also put this article on my list of "long-term projects", although I suspect it'll be a few months before I can tackle it in detail. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:44, 25 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I cut some sections substantially and would like to reduce other sections as well, which don't add to the understanding of the 'digital divide' phenomenon or its implications, or are non-encyclopedic. I think this is done in Neutral Point of View mode, but I am not sure: Perhaps my cuts are seen as vandalism. All cuts are of course reversible. I would like now to smooth out the gaps and tackle the references and further reading bits but will wait for some comments (or reversals) firstSleuth21 (talk) 10:32, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, after I looked at your edits, I'd like to ask you to self-revert. I don't see any specific reason why you chose to cut what you did.  I agree the article was/is too long, but the solution is not just to arbitrarily remove whole sections.  Part of what we need to do is to consider whether, rather than just deleting the info, splitting is the better choice.  Could we move more slowly through the different parts of the article to determine what is good and what isn't as important? Qwyrxian (talk) 06:25, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I agree: I am out of my depth here. The deletions were justified, but should have been done incrementally, not 'in bulk'. They were not done quite arbitrarily (I went for unjustified details, especially US ones) but much too bulky. I 'self-reverted' were possible automatically, but had to do one revert 'by hand'. The article is now substantially as before, give and take a few paragraph breaks. I will in future concentrate on incremental edits of smaller, less complicated WP articles. Major clean-ups should be done by more experienced WP editors. Thanks again, Qwyrxian, also for phrasing your comments in such a gentle and helpful manner. Sleuth21 (talk) 07:49, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Jabari Simama "spam"
MrOllie, could you explain why you think the new addition cited to Jabari Simama is spam? It seems no more or less valid than most of the other references we have. I almost reverted your removal, but I'd like to hear your explanation. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It was added by a single purpose account, and it seems that the book is self published (The publisher doesn't seem to have published anything else, is located where Simama lives, and has a very similar name to another organization he founded). - MrOllie (talk) 15:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Digital divide - does it matter?
Of course the digital divide exists, but is there any evidence that countries with a high 'digital penetration' (say, China, USA, or Germany) do better than countries with lower penetration (say, India, Slovenia, or Norway)? Do such countries (high penetration) weather current economic difficulties better, adjust more rapidly to changing educational needs etc.? And what can one surmise about a link between a country’s digital penetration and, say, its position on a happiness or quality of life index? Is the digital divide a statistical artefact we should really worry about? One could, I suppose, ask the same questions about the digital divide within a given country? Should there be a paragraph on these aspects in this article? (Or is there already? I couldn't see one) Sleuth21 (talk) 18:12, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Criticism
I edited the criticism to remove reference that computers "get smarter" over time. If this quote was a reference from another source it should have been cited. Either way the idea that computers are getting smarter shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the operation of computers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.111.201.110 (talk) 15:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposed changes to Digital divide
Total access to ICTs and Internet technologies establishes the potential for individuals to achieve fully functioning capabilities with the information and knowledge acquired from usage. Definitions of the term "digital divide" are variable and ever-changing with the evolution of technology, more affordable infrastructure being made available to wider populations, and increased reliance on technological innovations to perform daily tasks. In addition to not providing a sufficiently comprehensive definition for the term "digital divide", I believe the article, Digital divide, is outdated, missing theoretical explanations, lacking methodological organization, and additionally fails to address effects of the digital divide whose implications make the digital divide a necessary and relevant issue to policy makers on a domestic and global perspective. I plan to reorganize the main structure of the article so that the organization of the Digital divide may act as a template for future subsections (current, see: Global digital divide and Digital divide in Mainland China). I plain to structure the reorganization addressing the drawbacks previously listed (theoretical explanations, infrastructure, effects and implications). Most importantly, the current article has a major lack of consistency in addressing the issue of a digital divide from either a domestic (from the United States' perspective) or global perspective. Keeping a comprehensive and inclusive perspective will be maintained. Comments are appreciated!

Achresto (talk) 02:59, 16 October 2011 (UTC)Achresto
 * It's true that the article is a bit of a mess. The major cause is that this article has been used as a school project, mostly unofficially, on several different occasions. When that happens, students generally just dump a whole high school essay into a new section, without actually trying to integrate it with the rest of the article, writing in an encyclopedic tone, or even considering if the info belongs in WP at all.  I've tried to trim back the additions as they come in, but never taken the time to do a full revamp.  If you are actually considering changing the entire article, could I suggest that you do it in your userspace first?  That way it will be much easier to see the differences between old and new, and make it easier for other editors to comment about those changes.  Plus, it lets you work over a longer period of time without being interrupted or reverted.  Such an approach is not required, but can make it easier. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:41, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Heartily agree with those comments. The article is too long and incoherent, so needs "tightening", but needs to be kept with cited sources and not have personal opinion. User space might be one way to go. Another approach would be to give an outline here first. But yes indeed, using this as a general overview article that introduces more specific articles on major countries etc. is a common approach, There is an art to summarizing without just repeating the details. Long "see also" lists are usually signs that an overview article is needed too, since often these should be worked into the body in a sentence or two to indicate why they are relevant. Generally push details down into the most specific article and keep only an overview here that can be less intimidating to read. W Nowicki (talk) 16:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Lo and behold, we have three perfect examples: look at the last three edits to the article. Those are clearly 3 articles by students that have just been dumped into the middle of the article without considering what is nearby and without considering if the information is excessive or undue. But it does appear to be sourced, and at least the English is coherent, so what do we do? We shouldn't just revert it.  The problem is that for some reason this particular article is clearly the target of some teacher's class assignments.  I once asked a student, maybe a year ago, who their teacher was, and the student told me that their teacher doesn't use Wikipedia.  Sigh.  Qwyrxian (talk) 04:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * After further consideration and talking with my professor and other students in my class we came up with a solution for this article. Before, I proposed that the article "Digital Divide" be all encompassing for every article on Wikipedia that would concern the digital divide. However, since the digital divide has different meanings on different levels of units of analysis, a comprehensive article would really just be a combination of the already existing article titled "Global Digital Divide" and this current article (which changes perspectives from a global to a domestic perspective). I realize that this may be a drastic change, but most of the information in the existing article already points in this direction. My suggested changes include renaming this article "Digital Divide in the United States", moving the section on the "Global Digital Divide" to the page titled "Global Digital Divide" and divvying up the policies listed in this article between the two. The Global Digital Divide, therefore, can be the main page - which I also plan on cleaning up - and articles such as this one (with the hopeful retitle Digital Divide in the United States) and the articles on the divide in Mainland China linked to it.

Additionally, I will definitely be putting the article in my userspace first - I think that plan of organization is a great route to take. The outline I plan to use is in my sandbox, but also is as follows: I. Definitions II. Conceptualization of the digital divide III. Approaches IV. Theoretical Explanations i. Income ii. Gender iii. Age iv. Race and Ethnicity v. Educational Attainment vi. Geographical Location V. Means of Connectivity VI. Purpose of Connectivity VII. Lack of Connectivity VIII. Overcoming the digital divide IX. Implications i. Social Capital ii. Economic Gains iii. Within the Capabilities Approach X. Criticisms Comments and feedback are greatly appreciated! The draft should be up in my userspace by tomorrow. Achresto —Preceding undated comment added 17:38, 26 October 2011 (UTC).

New Digital Divide
I added a paragraph about a new type of digital divide which is emerging in some schools in North America. I added this paragraph so that this article about the digital divide can stay up to date on current issues on the subject.--Knowledgemania (talk) 02:21, 22 October 2011 (UTC) I would appreciate some feedback on my paragraph and so if anybody has any opinions please let me know.--Knowledgemania (talk) 23:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Your addition looks good; it is well written. I think that the section it's in is too long though. Maybe it can be broken down into subsections. There are other sections that are very long as well. Maybe a 'cleanup' or 'wikify' tag could be added so people can work on that? DaffyBridge (talk) 23:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Second level digital divide or the production gap
In an effort to update the page, I would like to add another section on what researchers are calling the second level digital divide or also the production gap. Essentially this is the gap that exists between the consumers of online content and the producers. Here is a link to an unpublished, except on the web, article http://utexas.academia.edu/TeresaCorrea/Papers/140182/Literature_Review_Understading_the_second-level_digital_divide_ by Teresa Correa, a doctoral student at the University of Texas Austin. There is also an excellent article about this by Jen Schradie of UC Berkley titled "The Digital Production Gap: The digital Divide and Web 2.0 Collide." Here is a link: http://sociology.berkeley.edu/documents/newspage_docs/J.%20Schradie%20-%20The%20Digital%20Production%20Gap%20for%20Web%20Post%20Poetics.pdf It was published in April 2011 in the journal of Poetics, so it is current. I could also attempt to break up the overcoming digital divide section into more manageable and readable sections. I also have found a couple of good sources on a possible separate section on the digital divide and the elderly to add to the sections on the forms of the digital divide (i.e. race, gender, etc..). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Istudentstgeorge (talk • contribs) 02:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I just added the section of the second level digital divide, also known as the production gap. If anyone has any comments or suggestions about I could improve, I would appreciate it. I would still be interested in adding an additional subheading on the digital divide and the elderly. Istudentstgeorge (talk) 21:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * By any chance, did you do this as part of a class assignment? I ask because you clearly put a lot of effort into formatting and all of this, and it looks very much like a school essay.  If so, would you mind telling me your teacher's username?  We have ways of coordinating educational projects on Wikipedia, and it might help if your class (or, at least, future classes this teacher runs) were incorporated into that. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:52, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we were asked to contribute to a Wikipedia article as part of an assignment. A Wikipedia ambassador who is in our graduate program visited our class to talk about Wikipedia, as part of a Wikipedia initiative to get more people contributing. Also, this entry "digital divide" is on the list of Wikipedia articles that have been assigned to university students, as part of a Wikipedia initiative. There are over 1,000 entries that Wikipedia has specifically requested and sent out information on to students in order to recruit them to participate in the Wikipedia project. It is interesting that you say it seems like a school essay, because I didn't approach this at all like a school essay. I wanted to help update the article through the inclusion of more current research into the digital divide (I am in a Master's of Information program), so I found a few sources and I summarized the main points of this research and created a new entry. If you could offer some constructive feedback on how it is school essay like and not like a Wikipedia article or not appropriate to Wikipedia, I would very much appreciate it. Please be specific in your feedback (beyond it is school-essay like because the phrasing of that could be alienating to potentially valuable new Wikipedia contributors who may be coming to Wikipedia for the first time through an official Wikipedia initiative in the schools), as that will actually help improve the article and help new Wikipedia contributors learn. Thank you. Istudentstgeorge (talk) 13:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * My instructor's username is SiobhanStevenson. She would be happy to speak with you about our involvement in the wikipedia project.Istudentstgeorge (talk) 17:17, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Unrelated comment to this article, but that is really cool. Recruiting help from college students is a good move by wikipedia.MilkStraw532 (talk) 22:47, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I wonder if the second level of the digital divide (production gap, knowledge divide, etc) might be better off as a new article. This current "Digital Divide" article is incredibly lengthy as is. Since I'm also editing this article as a school assignment it'd be great for us to collaborate! I listed my outline up above ^ if you'd like to take a look and let me know what you think. I definitely think, however, that a link to a new article might be better off in the potential future "criticisms" section. I plan to discuss how many researchers believe that the digital divide in ACCESS is lessening and new divides that still pertain to technology have began to develop. E.g., much of the digital divide literature has focused on the gap between high and low SES families, but many low SES families and individuals are finding access by connecting through a cheaper medium - mobile phones. However, the now questionable knowledge divide is looming, emphasizing that access has been mostly addressed and now becoming a 'digitally literal' is necessary in order to process and efficiently use the information that the Internet presents for writing resumes, keeping up with current events, researching for papers, etc. Please feel free to contact me! Achresto (talk) 18:15, 26 October 2011


 * Thanks MilkStraw532 for the encouragement. Achresto, It would be great to get this entry polished up. I like your outline. I noticed that there is an entry on Knowledge divide and it has a sub-category on the knowledge divide and digital divide. I will be studying classificiation next semester, so I am a bit puzzled on what is worthy of entry and what is just a subcategory. I guess it depends on the amount of research or information available? Anyway, if you think we could have enough to create a whole production gap or second level digital divide entry, then I am in. Also, is digital literacy similar to information literacy? and then how do those categories compare to second level digital divide/production? It's all overlapping for me. Then there are differences between countries in regards to the technology (of course), but also the linguistic divide, as it relates to a production gap, as well. Have you seen the Wikipedia documentary, People are Knowledge? directed by Achal Prabal, I believe. Otherwise, if we decide to keep second level digital divide as a subcategory in this main digital divide entry, then I am also in for working on breaking it and organizing it and getting rid of redundancies, and also updating it to reflect current research and perspectives. Thanks. Istudentstgeorge (talk) 16:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Istudentstgeorge and others, I've made my overarching changes to the article. The digital divide article is now based on current statistics from current and coveted research articles and books. I have taken content from the previous article and merged it with the new information. I have some touching up to do on the last sections, but wanted to get it up and live for comments! Please let me know if anyone has any pressing concerns about the article, and I'll fix them as best I can! I think this new article addresses many of the needed cleanups listed: outdated information, lack of citations (the previous information I used I am still attempting to find citations for), etc. Thanks to everyone for the comments and suggestions! Achresto (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:15, 20 November 2011 (UTC).

Americentrism?
This whole article talks only about america, it seems like the editors are whining about american problems in the digital world. Wake up! America is not the only nation on the planet!142.35.234.191 (talk) 17:51, 25 November 2011 (UTC) Ps, I added a template

The reason I only discussed America in this article is because much of the previous article shifted its focus between a global and a domestic perspective. The framework for the digital divide articles already established and secured in Wikipedia actually provide a great global framework! (See Global digital divide and Digital divide in Mainland China). These articles are in much better shape than the previous article here was (see previous discussion about information dumps and too lengthy). However, I'd really appreciate your feedback on the writing style in this article. Should it be more positive focused? I plan on adding more graphs and charts as well as elaborating on the conclusion sections (implications and criticisms). Do you also think I should include a summarized section on the global digital divide and link it to the other article? Thanks! (Achresto) —Preceding undated comment added 16:33, 27 November 2011 (UTC).
 * An article titled "digital divide" should not be focused only on the US. In fact, that article should just be merged into this one. If necessary, we can split off an article specifically titled "Digital divide in the United States".  However, let me tell you that that Global digital divide is not even slightly in good shape--just like this one, it appears to be a collection of student essays, not an encyclopedia article.  I've just started glancing at it now and I'm already axing tons of it.  Qwyrxian (talk) 23:54, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Would you recommend me merging the two together? That can definitely be done. I can also spruce up the current global digital divide article in incorporating it into the overarching Digital divide. Or, do you think that the current information I added to this article (the Digital Divide) should just be split off into another article titled "Digital divide in the United States"? Thanks for all your feedback! These were issues I was also encountering when attempting to edit the current article. The main problem I foresaw with merging the two articles together was the attempt to maintain one perspective over the other (domestic versus global) since the definitions of the digital divide are somewhat different for the two different units of analysis. Achresto (talk) 1:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Your last point is a good one, and points to a problem with merging them together. As far as I can tell, digital divide, generally speaking, means any disparity between two groups, broadly construed, in terms of their access to or use of information technology (computers, mobile devices, etc.). That's a really broad definition.  Global digital divide seems to focus on the difference in access between first world and third world countries; this article, on the other hand, focuses more on differences in access between people of different social classes, genders, and races.  As you say, those two focuses are pretty different.  Perhaps the best approach would be to transform this article into a skeleton, a broad outline, with sections like "Digital divide in the United States", and "International digital divide", each of which would have a "Main" template, linking the reader to the sub-articles, and then a one or two paragraph summary of each of those articles.  Thus, someone typing the most common term "digital divide" would get a broad article with only general info (not even many sources), and lots of convenient links to specific articles.  This is basically what is described as a concept dab, a good example of which is found at Particle. If we do that, the main question for me is how to handle the sub-topics.  That is, having articles like "DD in the US" is reasonable, but so is having articles by axis of division, such as "DD by gender" and "DD by country".  Any thoughts on this approach?  I think I would prefer this to merging them together. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed, handling the subtopics is the trickiest part. I would be fully open to the idea of making the information in this article a new Digital Divide in the United States. So, what we need to nail down follows:
 * 1. A broad definition of the digital divide that can encompass all countries' versions. This definition (yours with a little tweaking) seems adequate: Any gap between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies.
 * 2. Which subtopics to include in this article. The problem with making this a skeleton is that, to my knowledge, the origin of the term "digital divide" stems from President Clinton's 2000 State of the Union address (so the term was coined in the United States and adopted by other countries on a global level). Additionally, the difference in the definitions is that there are different levels of analysis in different countries: individual, household, neighborhood, countries, etc. Here are all of the subtopics in each article pertaining to the digital divide: (global) physical access, financial access, cognitive access, design access, institutional access, political access, cultural access, (digital divide) income, education, race, gender, and location. Some of these intertwine so my suggestion is as follows:
 * Subtopics include: physical access (infrastructure, design will be included here), financial access, psychological aversions (cognitive), location (includes institutional), political access, cultural access (language will be included here), income, education, race, gender, and location.
 * 3. How do we define these subtopics? Should we merely define what the variable is or include how it pertains to the digital divide? The difficulty here can be demonstrated using gender as an example: On a domestic level, there is no digital divide, however on a global level there is evidence that there is a gap between usage for men and women. For this reason I don't think we can divide articles by axis of division, since we'll encounter there the same problem as having to address different gaps for different countries. I think it is more efficient to handle the sub topics within this article and have linked articles to other countries, especially since most of the literature addresses the digital divide through countries and not necessarily through axes of division. Achresto (talk) 17:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * These are good, hard questions. The "easy" answer is that we should do whatever the sources do.  The problem, of course, is if there are multiple sources saying different things.  Are there any good, authoritative texts on the subject? If not, I think that for now, the main "info" should include the ideas that there are many different axes along which a divide exists (with citations covering either general ideas or across multiple countries, ideally).  Then, we have to take a look at our sources more closely to figure out how to divide them.  For example, the current sources in the "gender" section are only about the US.  Thus, that whole section should be moved into the sub-article Digital divide in the United States. In the income section, since those sources all seem to be Pew Research reports, they're probably about the US (since Pew generally just polls in the US), but we should be sure.  But in "Overcoming the digital divide in the United States", there actually appears to be non-US info--for example, I'm pretty sure that the sentence about World Information Society Day should be in a global section, not a US one.
 * Also, one final note: whenever possible, we should try to avoid using Pew Research data, or, at least, if we are going to use it, use it extremely carefully. Pew studies probably fall under the category of primary sources, which means we have to be careful to state only what they literally say, not what they might mean.  It would be much better if we could use sources from academic journals or books that analyze the data and draw conclusions. Unfortunately, I can't be much help in this regard, because I don't have access to a university library with good sources or online journal access.
 * Oh, one final-final note. I said above that the question is hard, but, for now, we can make it easy on ourselves, and simply divide things up based on what we've got.  For example, we're obviously not going to create a blank article titled Digital divide in Germany, even though there probably is research (albeit in German) on the subject.  So, we know we have info right now for an inter-country divide (currently at Global digital divide), we have Digital divide in China, and we can clearly write a Digital divide in the United States by taking out a lot of this article.  Then, as we get more information, we can add more.  I don't know if, for instance, we have enough information for a general article on Gender differences in technology access.  But nothing stops us from leaving it out for now and simply adding it in the future. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, so just to reiterate. We WILL be creating different digital divide articles for the information that we have on certain countries. So, I will start working primarily on the article that will be titled Digital divide in the United States by taking a lot of information out of this article. However, what should I leave here without leaving this article completely blank and to avoid having two different pages with the same information? Achresto (talk) 20:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't worry about this article too much; if it goes down to stub size temporarily, that's fine. I guess you should leave the lead here; leave that article's lead until later.  One important thing you may not know as a new editor: when you move information, every time you do so, in your edit summary, include the phrase "Information split from Digital divide".  This is required in order to preserve attribution (the CC-SA-BY license everyone releases their edits under). There's also something we'll have to add to the talk page here and there, but I'll look that up later. Once you figure out what goes into the other article, then what I can do is summarize that article here in a paragraph or two, and keep a link to the other one.
 * Also, after I typed all of that, I think it would probably be easiest if you built the US article in your own sandbox, first. Don't delete the info here as you move it there (though, do use the edit summaries like I mentioned).  Then, once that article's in decent shape, we can move it into mainspace.  Qwyrxian (talk) 12:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Vagueness
Article fails to emphasize the most blatant digital divide, i.e., between rich and poor countries. Over half of Americans have computers and home Internet access. Rural Africa has incomparably less (not to mention lack of electricity, fresh water, and so on). This should be mentioned in the opening paragraphs. --Uncle Ed (talk) 16:22, 3 January 2012 (UTC)


 * That information is found at Global digital divide. But you're right, we should have a link to that article here; i'll add one more prominently. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:33, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, no, when I re-read it, it's right there in the lead. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Class projects
If anyone is trying to edit this page for a class project, and can't do so because the article is semi-protected, please ask your professor/teacher to contact me on my user page (User Talk:Qwyrxian). Some of the information that has been suggested may be appropriate (although probably in a different article), but we need some more coordination about how to handle this before we can proceed. Thank you. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 13 February 2012
Digital Divide: Explanatory Variables According to official American and Dutch statistics taken in the 1980’s and 1990’s there is reason to believe that a large amount of the ‘digital divide’ gap is due to the evolving nature of the information in network society. Before the 1980’s PC’s and computer networks were known for their “unfriendliness” and their difficulty, but since then the introduction of graphic and audiovisual tools has aided in a smoother transition to technology usage. However, research still suggests that a large amount of the digital divide in the Netherlands at least can be attributed to a lack of “digital skills” or “instrumental skills” (the actual aptitude to maneuver technology software). Ability is measured based on how well the user can gain information about the technology, and how strategically they use such information (for what purpose). The digital divide can exist in many different aspects for instance there can be a divide due to income, education, location in the world, gender, age, or even ethnicity. It is possible for the gap to be closing in some areas while growing in others. Income is an important factor because newer Internet technology and software can be much less complex (tough difficulty levels do vary across different types) and they come with a lot more options than they did ten years ago. Adoption of medium is getting closer and closer to being part of society on average. Even though new software is able to lessen the gap of the digital divide, there are still some problems, for instance; incorporating new technologies into households doesn’t always replace old technologies, computers are continuing to be improved upon thus leaving the older models obsolete within a short amount of time, and the fact that it cost to get on the internet. But it is not so simply to say that the problem of the digital divide would be solved if every citizen had their own computer, from which they could access the Internet freely, the biggest problem contributing to the digital divide is the uneven rate of diffusion.

Bronco88 (talk) 18:59, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. -- andy4789 ★ ·  (talk?   contribs?)  00:06, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Mobile Phones
It seems like this article could use a section on Mobile Phones and the Digital Divide. Specifically, how mobile phones are helping to overcome the digital divide. This should be linked to from mobile phone and leapfrogging. Some possible pages to get info are:

Mobile telephony, one should note, suffers much less from the constraints of user capabilities and to this extent (in combination with a relatively low entry price) may witness a more rapid closure of the digital divide, especially in the poorest regions where the lack of user capabilities is most pronounced (though, as noted below, it does suffer from an affordability constraint). 8

It is Africa, the world's poorest region, that has seen by far the most rapid rate of mobile phone subscriptions in recent years. In particular, between 1998 and 2003 a growth rate of 1000% was recorded, leading in the last year to an absolute number of over 50 million. One year later, in 2004, there were no fewer than 76 million subscribers (Gray, 2006). Tellingly, the rate of growth of Internet users between 1999 and 2004, from 0.37 to 2.12 per 100 inhabitants was much less. This difference, however, is not solely due to the variation in the required degree of user capabilities noted above but also to the fact that infrastructural problems are generally far less pronounced in the case of mobile telephony. Whereas, for example, connectivity is still a major problem of Internet access in rural areas of poor developing countries in general and Africa in particular, with mobile coverage 'its cheapness and ease of installation mean that [it is] growing rapidly in many countries, as illustrated by Bangladesh, where .... Coverage has grown from 36% in 2003 to a planned 85% coverage by the end of 2005' (ITU, 2006b: 12).

It bears emphasizing, however, that what is being argued here is not that rapid future growth of mobile phones can somehow be taken for granted. One still needs to recognize that in the poorest countries 'mobile ownership is still mainly for the privileged middle class and elites in urban areas. For many others, the costs of mobile ownership and use remain prohibitively high' (Donner, 2005: 2). It is true that the number of users will always be higher than the number of owners because of various types of sharing mechanisms (within the household or through the rental of telephone time), but as yet there are no data that can tell us the exact extent of the difference between owners and users of mobile telephony in a particular country. 9

Regardless of one's predictions about the future rates of growth in IT, however, the digital divide described above can only be grounds for concern (leading to policy intervention) if there were significant benefits to IT usage or negative consequences from non-usage. Even if both conditions are satisfied, the question remains as to whether and why developed countries should regard the digital divide as an issue of concern to them. Accordingly, I now turn to these important questions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryanhackney (talk • contribs) 17:01, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

      

Edit request on 28 June 2012
I would like to provide a more comprehensive theoretical outline of the "digital divide". The following is what I would like to add (please note that this was written in the context of an academic course):
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: Can you provide in-text citations? See Referencing for beginners for information on how to do so. Ryan Vesey  Review me!  16:36, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * In addition, it looks like some of this is original research, but it is hard to tell what is and what isn't based on the lack of in-text citations. Ryan Vesey Review me!  16:36, 28 June 2012 (UTC)