As technology has advanced over the years, it has become more affordable and accessible, yet a digital divide between the privileged and unprivileged. This digital divide has tangible consequences for those who do not have access. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center Report entitled “Digital differences,” one in five American adults does not use the internet.[1] Among this US population of those who do not use the internet are senior citizens, Non-English language speakers, adults with less than a high school education, those living in households earning less than $30,000 per year, and persons with disabilities.[2] Around 27% of adults in the United States live with a disability. Of that population, only 54% of adult persons with disabilities use the internet consistently, as opposed to 84% of Americans in general[3] The reasons for this discrepancy and multifarious. Disability, compounded with other factors that determine internet use such as old age, lack of education, and lower income results in a fundamentally underserved population in regards to access to ICTs. If people with disabilities are not included in the rapidly growing digital world economy, they could be left behind.

How can we expand access to ICTs for persons with disabilities? While this question is one that we are still struggling with today, there are many innovators and organizations working to make the internet and other technologies more accessible to persons with disabilities. One key opportunity for advancement is in the design of the technology itself. For some people with disabilities, barriers can appear in the design of software used for employment and education. To address this issue, some companies and innovators have developed assistive technologies designed to aid disabled persons’ successful interactions with technologies. In addition to developing assistive technologies, advocates for inclusion have promoted the idea of “universal design” as a standard for all technology design. This concept is the idea of shifting the audience in mind when designing technologies from the “average user” to all people. In promoting this idea, advocates are urging technology developers to cease ignoring the needs of PWDs in favor of catering technology to the average consumer. For advocates of the concept, its is possible to address both of these populations simultaneously so that there are little to no barriers to access in technologies. While assistive technologies will not solve the “digital divide” as a whole for persons with disabilities, a change in mindset within the technology sector to keep universal accessibility central to the design of ICTs is change that is necessary for the expansion of inclusivity.

[1] Pew Research Center

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

Works Cited:

Zickuhr, Kathryn, and Aaron Smith. “Digital Differences.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. N. p., 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2017.

Technology is one of the pillars of the future. Access to technology is greatly unequal throughout the United States as well as the world. This is the heart of the concept “digital divide.” I, as an upper middle class white male, have had almost no limitations to what I want in regards to technology. I get a new iPhone every year or two, as well as a new laptop or tablet device. I have access to large amounts of digital libraries through my university, something that many people do not have access to if they do not go to a large, liberal arts university. I live in a place where I have access to efficient public transportation. A lot of people in the United States do not have the access to the technology that I do, let alone the rest of the world. This lack of access to the internet and other digital technologies, something that is extremely convenient and beneficial, is socioeconomically detrimental. It blocks many people from reaching their full potential and staying competitive in this day and age.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration wrote a report in 1995 titled “Falling Through the Net.” That report focused on a disparity between the “haves” and “have nots” in the United States, a prominent digital divide. The report states that “while Americans are becoming increasingly connected, there are still significant discrepancies in Access.” The United States is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, with many new innovations being patented every day. Even though many people have access to laptops, smartphones, and other technologies, many others do not. But how do we overcome this economic inequality and repair the digital divide? This is part of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – goal #9 focuses on innovation and infrastructure while goal #10 centers on reducing inequalities within and between countries. The combination of these two goals will help to reduce the digital divides that exist. With less inequality between and within countries, more people will have equal access and opportunities, one of which being access to digital technologies. With innovation and infrastructure, this access will be more readily available and accessible for everyone.

An older report, the McBride Report “Many Voices, One World” (1980), also highlights the major inequalities between countries considered “developed” and “developing” in regards to information technology. Everywhere we look, we can see these discrepancies. In order to overcome them, we have to put the infrastructure in place. Technology needs to be more accessible to overcome these digital divides. The SDGs do well in providing an outline to follow, but now we just need to follow it.

The 1985 Maintland Report “The Missing Link” pointed out disparity in access to telephone in developed and developing country. The report emphasized importance of telecommunication in development and added a dimension to global inequality. Besides inequality at a global level, there is also domestic inequality in access to telecommunication, even in developed countries. “Falling Through the Net” is a survey that presents unequal access to the Internet in rural and urban areas of the United States. From “The Missing Link” to “Falling Through the Net,” we can observe two trends in discussion on role of telecommunication. One is the form of telecommunication has evolved from landline telephone to the Internet. The other trend is instead of limiting comparison at a global level, there is also examination within a country. But literature on access to telecommunication is still mainly focusing on economic development and regional disparity. In fact, there are certain social groups that are experiencing more difficulties than others, such as elderly persons, women, and persons with disabilities. Therefore, I see such exclusion as a new way to define of “falling through the net.”

Access to telecommunication is crucial to empowerment of vulnerable members of society. Internet and technology tools and help persons with disabilities overcome physical barriers. Virtual meeting platforms, online learning, and online business can all help persons with disabilities enhance their economic and political status. With access to the Internet, persons with disabilities can better participate in global governance. This participation will then lead to more inclusive policy-making on a global scale. The World Summit on the Information Society organized by International Telecommunication Union encourages multistakeholder global governance. As a summit that focuses on spread of Internet and bridging the digital divide, inclusion of persons with disabilities will not only better fulfill its mission but also improve such participation for other global governance platforms.

It is true that telecommunication, as an element contributing to development, is carrying more and more value in both policy making and in practice. Exciting technology advancements in this field help accelerate development and are enjoyed and welcomed by many. But it’s important to keep in mind that there are still members of society that are falling through the net. Only by including those who are traditionally marginalized, such as persons with disabilities, can we truly bridge the digital divide. In doing so, they can also have a greater say in policy making in other areas of development.

The “Digital Divide” entails the technological divide in which information access is inhibited in particular societies. As a result of this, more societies are technologically falling behind while others are dramatically moving forward. In Falling through the Net, we learn about how America has experienced growth in access to electronic services with households in rural, suburban and urban areas sharing a growth in the number of households who own PCs. That being said, the digital divide is still evident with income, race & origin, education, household type, age, religion and state all playing factors. It is important to realize that the concept of intersectionality when discussing the digital divide. The diverse demographics or the American household and family means that there are more factors surrounding the digital divide.

In addition, the digital divide connects to the topic of information access making it very relevant to my final project. In terms of addressing the digital divide in Africa, the “ICT Policy Centre for Eastern and Southern Africa” created a policy briefing called The State of Right to Information in East Africa. This briefing is included in my research and identifies the digital divide in relation to the Right to Information laws implemented in the Eastern African countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya. As described in my review of relevant literature, only 13 out of 54 African countries have Right to Information laws (RTI). That being said, the countries with these laws have multiple issues in terms of overcoming restriction barriers in implementation.

In particular, these are the main facts behind the Right to Information laws in the following countries:  

• Uganda: first country to pass an RTI law back in 2005
• Rwanda: followed in 2013
• Tanzania: published an RTI draft law in 2006 and nine years later in 2015
• Kenya: published an RTI Bill in 2007, is yet to pass it into law, despite civil society pressure for government to fast-track adoption of the legislation
• Summarize the legal provisions and restrictions to citizens’ right to information in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda

In my home of Doswell, Virginia (most known for being the home of the amusement park, Kings Dominion), I do not have reliable Internet access. I have means of connecting to the Internet, as I have a smart phone and I have a computer, but this ability to connect does not mean my service is reliable. Throughout high school, and during my visits home, I am forced to make the 15 minute drive to the town of Ashland where I use the local university library or take refuge in a Starbuck’s to make use of the free Wi-Fi services. While a 15-minute drive is no huge obstacle and I am fortunate to be able to make this commute, the fact that my home remains so isolated in such a rapidly connecting world has always perplexed myself and my older brother, though has done little to trouble my parents. In contrast to this poor connection was the (mostly) reliable and quick service I had in my apartment in Nairobi.

To many, in both Kenya and the US, this was a startling revelation. However, it echoes the findings of the paper, “Falling through the Net”, which outlines the “digital divide” between rural and urban America. While this particular paper explored the topic in the United States, the “digital divide” is not solely an American construct and can be seen all the way from the bottom at the local level up to the top at the international level. It is an evolving term that corresponds to changes in access to and usage of technologies. To clarify, the digital divide once could have applied to the global population who did or didn’t have mobile phones but now as the majority of the world has these devices, it has adapted to whether or not these devices are smart phones with web-browsing capabilities.

Another report with a more international focus was the “Many voices, One world” paper by the MacBride Commission, published in 1980. This paper, though dated now, established many of the concerns associated with ICTs that still remain today, although mostly in newer forms of technology. The two reports mentioned here laid the groundwork for discussion on ICTs and are largely to thank for the forums and societies on Internet governance today that are still working towards closing the gaps created by ICTs. Since it is hard to know what directions ICTs will go in, it is hard to know for sure what digital divide(s) will look like in the future. However, it is important to continue to have both reflective and proactive discussions on ICTs so that the digital divide is less and less a cause for concern in development practice.

The digital divide essentially refers to the socioeconomic gap that exists between those with access to the internet and those without. In the present day, it seems like a majority of people with frequent access to the internet would agree that the internet is incredibly convenient in allowing us a direct line of communication to friends and family at whatever time of the day, access to news in real-time, as well as enables us with access to almost any piece of information or knowledge that one could seek. Although access to the internet has been a widespread, global phenomenon, there still remains an astounding 4.2 billion people worldwide who still do not have frequent access to the internet (www.mic.com). Without access to the internet, many people essentially face an information gap in which they may not be able to take advantage of the same knowledge that those who do have access to the internet can take advantage of (thus potentially lowering their abilities for social and economic mobilization). One of the issues pertaining to infrequent access to the internet is that there are many who simply can not afford the technology required to connect to the internet (such as computers and smartphones), can not afford the internet connection itself, or may also just not be in a location where capturing internet connection is not possible (thus pointing to some of the bigger developmental issues that exist in the world such as economic inequalities, or insufficient telecommunication technologies).

In the year 1999, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration released a report called Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide. The report essentially examined which American households had access to telecommunication technologies (such as the internet and telephones) as well as the households that did not. Overall, the report concluded that the digital divide seemed to be widening, particularly within groups such as “minorities, low-income persons, the less educated, and children of single-parent households, particularly when they reside in rural areas or central cities” (Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide, Introduction). What is unfortunate about the situation is that often time, the groups with infrequent access to the internet seem to be the disadvantaged groups that may benefit from internet access the most, since the information available on the web can empower these groups with further economic opportunities such as job openings for low-income persons.

With that being said, it is important for governments worldwide to realize the vital role that telecommunications can have on the global population. Bridging this technology gap will require governments to invest in providing the infrastructure for internet connection if need be, as well as require the government to create policies that heighten the probability of disadvantaged groups to have access to the internet (such as instilling more affordable connection plans, or even providing more widespread public facilities that can provide internet access for little to no cost).

The United States of America has been at the forefront of the construction and deployment of the internet. We have also been a world leader at generating the content for it. Our country as filled the internet with everything from the complete works of Shakespeare, to an accessible way to obtain free healthcare. The United States of America has been a leader in digitization of government accessibility, and the rest of the world needs to catch up. This includes the international community. Our history of breaking internet boundaries extends from the original ARPANET through all of today’s advanced mobile phone networks. For decades, American engineers, consumers and companies have paved the way for advances in networking and computer applications. Today, nearly every American can access the Internet to some degree. The United States is actually numerically the world leader in scope of availability of advanced wireless broadband Internet services, such as 4G LTE. Unfortunately, the benefits of this long torrent of access to technology has been distributed unevenly. Millions of Americans still do not use the many services that the internet offers with any frequency or regularity. Research shows that there remains significant inequity in both Internet usage and the quality of access. This difference in access has come to be known as the “digital divide”. This deficit of access is felt worst among older, less educated, and less affluent American populations. Regionally, rural parts of the country that tend to have fewer choices and slower connections.

Closing the Divide has the potential to increase productivity and open paths to improving the quality of life of an individual or a whole population. President Obama has made expanding broadband Internet access a relatively higher priority in the past few years. Since 2009, federal government investments in closing the Divide have led to the deployment or enhancement of well over one hundred thousand miles of computer network infrastructure in the United States. In that same time, forty-five million Americans have adopted broadband internet. The President’s internet initiative titled ConnectED aims to connect virtually all American students to highspeed broadband in their classrooms in the next two years. In January of 2016, the President announced several other policies that his administration planned to take to ensure reliable broadband to more Americans at a decreased cost. These included efforts to promote community-based hardware for improving broadband and a call for State and local governments to strike down “short-sighted regulations that restrict competition”.