User talk:Lmaness3/Digital divide

Overview/background information on digital divide: The term digital divide was originally used by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the United States in its second falling through the net report entitled Falling Through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide.[1] The report analyzed telephone and computer penetration rates for low-income groups, minorities, women and the elderly, among other groups in society.[1] As digital technologies, particularly the Internet and its complementary technologies, establish a firm position in our daily life, this information gap has become widely known as ‘the digital divide’.[2] Digital divide are individuals who have/don't have the ability or access to technological devices.

Access to technology: Many elderly adults don't use or are informed on how to use technology. These individuals didn't grow up using technology like we have, so they favor not to learn how to use them. They would rather pick up the phone to call other than trying to text or Facetime you. The digital divide, they argue, will by itself shrink over time and eventually disappear because digital technologies will become increasingly accessible and simple to use.[2] In the future, telephone/television companies should come out with very basic and generic devices for the elderly population to use.

Technology that relates to digital divide: These devices can range from phones, to computers, to televisions, to apple watches to even iPods or iPads. These devices can do various things such as search the web, listen to music, connect with friends and family, watch shows and more. The main thing these devices do is search the web or use the internet. Internet technology is not only transmitting information but also changing the lifestyle of people around the world. It is not just providing entertainment but also empowering people to become entrepreneurs, businessmen and farmers.[3] The use of the internet can do so much for people, it can teach them, guide them, assist them and even transform them.

Digital Divide/Innovation Divide: As the years pass, technology devices become more advanced and digital. The global diffusion of digital technology, which occurred more rapidly than the global diffusion of any technology previously, has been mired by its uneven distribution across, and unequal effects on, societies worldwide.[4] Digital technology has plays a huge role in peoples lives. People work, communicate and interact through digital technology. Now a days parents stick their children in front of digital technology such as televisions, phones, iPods and iPads to keep them quiet instead of interacting with their child. Studies show that the attention is split between the less fortunate being about to access technology and the race on the newest/hottest technology.[4] These two concerns, which have been given the pithy titles of the “global digital divide” and the “global innovation divide,” are leading to two separate policy tracks, targeting the world’s laggards and leaders as separate entities and operating under separate logics.[4] This separation is problematic because the issues of access to technology and ownership of rights to technology are intertwined.[4]

Digital divide in the United States: Policymakers and scholars started talking about the digital divide when personal computers made their way into households in the 1990s, a timeline that included a growing internet and the World Wide Web.[5] When computers made their way into households, individuals started to purchase them and that's when the digital divide started because some individuals were wealthy enough to afford one and others weren't. Its early surveys documented the acquisition of computers and their use in home, work, and school settings, and investigated the demographic factors that predicted ownership and use, and in so doing they helped to define the digital divide as a matter of physical access to the technology.[5] And, yes, women, minorities and the elderly, and more generally the poor and the less educated, were indeed using computers less often.[5] Digital divide isn't only defined by wealth, it can be defined by age and sex as well.

Digital Divide in other countries: As we are aware, the United States is known to be more wealthy than other countries around the world, for example Africa. It is important to note that the digital divide produces negative externalities not only in developed countries, but also in less developed and developing countries as well.[6] For example, Africa makes up more than 14% of the world population, but accounts for only 2.6% of all Internet users worldwide (Fuchs & Horak, 2008).[6] This number is dramatically lower than 70% of the U.S. population which uses the Internet (Watson et al., 2008). [6] Although people may not want/need internet in their homes, it may also result into them not being able to afford it, or not being able the get it depending on where they live in each part of their country.

Others, especially in Asia, view the digital divide as a gap in the percentage of people in a country who are technologically literate and can use ICT (Information and Communication Technology) technologies such as the Internet and those who are technology illiterate.[7] Asia's example of digital divide is a lot like the elderly population in the U.S. while trying to use technology, some can and some can't.

China, being the largest country, has experienced rapid economic growth, however its economic development has been uneven (Zhao et al., 2006).[8] This uneven economic development has led to the inferior development of the ICT infrastructure in rural areas, causing a rural digital divide. [8] As the years go on, digital divide in China has some what stayed the same, but their use of technology is way different than other countries. They use technology to invent and create things, while other countries use it to mostly use it just for the Internet.

1. Parsons, Cheryl; Hick, Steven (2008). "Moving from the Digital Divide to Digital Inclusion". 7. 2. Nguyen, An. "The digital divide versus the 'digital delay': Implications from a forecasting model of online news adoption and use". Scholarly. 8. 3. Vidyasagar, D (2006). "Digital divide and digital dividend in the age of information technology". Scholarly. 26. 4.Drori, Gili (2010). "Globalization and Technology Divides: Bifurcation of Policy between the "Digital Divide" and the "Innovation Divide".  Scholarly. 80. 5. Strover, Sharon (2014). "The US Digital Divide: A Call for a New Philosophy". 114. 6. Maram, Allan; Ruggeri, David (2013). "The Digital Divide: Issue Framing and Policy Responses". 13. 7. Tanveer, Zia; Yeslam, Al-Saggaf; Islam, Md Zahidul; Zheng, Lihong; Weckert, John (2009). "The Digital Divide in Asia: Cases from Yemen, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and China". 18. 8. Chen, Dongyu; Lin, Zhangxi; Lai, Fujun (2010). "Crossing the Chasm - Understanding China's Rural Digital Divide". 13.