The Digital Divide
Has the digital divide (between both women and men and between developed and developing countries) widened in the decade 2004-2014?
Abstract
This report is detailed
Introduction
According to Tuffley& Antonio(2014), Digital divide is collection of gap which is based on the skills and also based on the access to the Information technology and this gap lies between people, families, organizations and geographic regions at distinctive financial levels with respect both to their chances to get to data and correspondence advancements (ICTs) and to their utilization of the Internet for a wide mixed bag of exercises. It is very difficult to improve the technical skills without accessing the resources based on the technology and digital divide is the gap which can be developed between those people who have utilised their skills by accessing the information technology and communication resource and those people who do not have access to these resources.
The digital divide gap creates many differences between the men and women and also between the countries. This report aims to explore the digital divide gap between men and women and also between the developed and developing countries which can be increase from year 2004 -2014. For that concern I have analysed many articles, news, eBooks and internet data to get information about the digital divide and there are too many question arises for this gap. Where does it happen and why? What are their causes? How
This report will examine how changes in technology are affected by society, in turn, how the society that produced this technology is impacted by this creation. The paper will specifically address the impact of personal computers, cell phones, and the internet on society, and how these technological advancements relate to the three major sociological perspectives; equilibrium model, digital divide, and cultural lag.
The contemporary world is rapidly developing as new technologies and ideas are being created each day, pushing humanity into a realm that has just been created. Mankind is currently living within the Digital Era, a time in which information has been freed from the confines of the physical world and can now be spread through the click of a button. Barriers that have separated different cultures and societies from each other have dissolved as technology has opened up a new expanse in which instant communication is capable on a large scale to connect the masses. This Digital Revolution is extremely similar to the Industrial revolution that changed society in the nineteenth century bringing upon drastic urbanization. They both drastically changed society as an increase of
Since the launch of the Internet as a global communication network and the boom in communication technologies, our world has been overwhelmed by a new phenomenon – digital divide. It has gradually turned into a major, constantly growing world issue, threatening to further increase the gap between advanced and developing countries. Yet, is digital divide really an unprecedented occurrence or a natural and unavoidable trend? “Divide” is certainly a word whose meaning could be traced back to the mere dawn of human history. It goes even deeper – to human nature itself: to sex and racial differentiation, to unequal physical and mental powers, to different
As a prerequisite before we analyse the one laptop per child (OLPC) program and then trying to compare it with other Information and communication Technology (ICT) initiatives, it is of great importance to understand the developmental issues all of which these programs aim to resolve. These programs in the current world do address multiple socioeconomic problems, as they most broadly mitigate the digital divide that currently exists. Many research papers have been written about the issues and characteristics stemming from the digital divide over the past few years. “The term ‘digital divide’ is most of the times used to describe the evident unequal ICT access patterns across various nations”. However, this phenomenon is not evidently witnessed between the rich and poor nations. It has also been noted that the digital divide encompasses unequal ICT access patterns within countries, this divide between the rich and poor, or the urban and the rural citizens.
But what has leads to this big unbalance? Our team think that it’s the work of the digital divide, which is a phenomenon that occurs from the mid-20th century. The birth of the internet has allowed other technology to escalate at an impressive rate. As such, the more internet usage a country has, the more developed it is. For example, Africa has internet usage rate of 0% except for certain small area, while rich regions like America and Australia
The digital divide is related to the access that certain people have to the knowledge and the resources necessary to keep up with society or to better their lifestyle. Researches has indicated that people from different socio-economic groups have limited access to technologies like unlimited internet access, the latest smartphones, or IPads which limits their personal and professional development. These restrictions contribute to what is known as the digital divide. Simply put, the digital divide is the division of knowledge and resources between the haves and the have-nots. The digital divide does exist but this should not be an excuse for people not to learn. As learned in our Principles of Adult Education class, adult learning can take place anywhere and anytime. People can learn in a classroom, on the job, or at home but learning is a contact sport and people have to want to
Laptops, smartphones, smartwatches and the Internet are all good examples that show how much human life has been relying on digital technologies in the past two decades. Nevertheless, digital divide, the phenomenon that not all people have access to digital technologies, still prevails in Australia. The recent Australia Digital Inclusion Index (ADII) report states that the increase in Internet coverage in the country has been little in the last three years, especially in South Australia and Tasmania, and the lower income group uses the Internet significantly less than the richer (Thomas, 2017). This certainly has much to do with the affordability of hardware and Internet services for people with low socioeconomic status, but such a divergence may also be explained by the absence of infrastructure, such as the broadband network service, in the remote regions (Park et al., 2015, p.3633).
From looking at figure 5 a varity of trends can be shown. When focusing on internet users a very slow rate of growth can be shown, this may be due to the small amount of countries that are able to get access to the World Wide Web due to connections. Over a 10 year period from 1998 to 2008 there can be seen a major rise in the use of the internet. As the internet is a relatively new device it is clear that those less developed countries would take time to get hold of it. 1990 was quite early for a developing country to use the internet but is is clear as the world has become more globalized and developed the internet usage has shot up. This is due to a technological advance around the world and slowly the developing countries got hold of
The United States of America faces many trials and tribulations ranging from social issues to economic ones. One problem that the U.S faces today and has been struggling to decrease is the Digital Divide. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Developments, “Digital Divide refers to the gap in access to information and communication technology”. Since the invention of technology many humans, especially, teenagers and young adults depends on it more than the phone directory or physical resources. The digital divide in the U.S causes many problems ranging from economic issues to educational issues. These issues are not new, but have been hard to resolve due to the prices of the internet. The United States can change the
The Australian Communications and Media Authority data (ACMA,2015) shows the differences between income level and technology clearly and confirm that whilst technology is more affordable and internet access is increasingly universal, a “digital divide” between rich and poor continues to grow.
Throughout this essay I will be discussing how the digital age has transformed society in many ways. The digital age also known as the information age, is the evolution of technology in daily life and social organizations have led to the fact that the modernization of information and communication processes has become the driving force of social evolution.” This is a time period in which we live in now where Internet and email are available; this is an example of the digital age. The Information Age is the idea that access to and the control of information is the defining characteristic of this current era in human civilization.
Since its introduction on a public scale in the 1990s, the internet has been associated with many changes in social experience. Many aspects of social life such as education, work, commerce and even personal relationships have changed through the internet. However, researchers have found that, at least in the early years, access to the internet is shaped according to gender, class, ethnicity and education. During the 1990s the typical information technology user was a white, male, professional with a background in IT. This bias in internet access was named the ‘digital divide’ to point out the implied social inequalities. It was said that the internet was
The digital divide is a term that is used vaguely throughout society. There is no definite meaning to the word. The digital divide normally occurs between those in cities or rural areas. The divide also exists between the more and less educated. One’s socioeconomic status also reflects whether one experiences the divide or not. On a global scale, the divide exists between the more and less technologically developed nations. The digital divide can be defined as: “the gap between demographics and regions that have access to modern information and communications technology, and those that don't or have restricted access” (Rouse, 2015). The digital divide can also be defined as: “a social issue referring to the differing amounts of information between those who have access to the Internet (especially broadband access) and those who do not have access” (ICT Information Communications Technology, 2015). However, the divide is not limited to Internet access. The divide can include access to telephones,
My first body paragraph will describe the background information on the digital divide and homework gap.
The digital divide is a term used for to describe the growing distance between those with access to information and those who don’t have the access. We would be a perfect example of the digital divide. What makes us a perfect example would be your lack of access to the internet and electronic devices like smartphone, computers, and the internet and how I have access to all of that information at the touch of my fingers. One aspect of the digital divide is the speed in which people can access information. The difference between high speed internet and dialup can have a major impact on staying informed. One way we are trying to bridge the digital divided is by trying to increase access to the internet. Organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have been leading advocates of provided the public access to the internet with networked computers in libraries since 1997. Some would say we are succeeding at least in the United States now that nearly 99 percent of public libraries have internet access available to the public. Now we are working on expanding the number of computers in those libraries. With the increasing use of smartphones the digital divide between different white Americans and African Americans shrunk greatly. Globally we face a harder time closing the gap since the digital divide closely follows behind the economic divide. As the