The Gutenberg Divide

Computers Help Children Learn Computer Skills, But What Else?

There is a huge problem in America today, that’s effecting everyone from students who will be soon entering the job market to experienced professionals who fear the loss of their job- and it’s not the economy. That problem, is the Digital Divide.

The Digital Divide refers to the gap between people with and without access to information and communication technologies, namely the internet, as well as the knowledge of how to use it. The Digital Divide is a global issue that affects individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels

According to an ABC affiliate’s article last week about a study at The University of Michigan, it’s a gap that is soon closing in the US. The reason? Teenagers who live in low-income housing, that haven’t had access to the internet previously, are using their smart cell phones to gain internet access.  “The research shows that 27% of all teenagers use their cell phone for internet. But more than 40% of those who live in homes that have income levels less than $30,000 a year will use their cell.”

Researchers Rich Ling, Katie Brown and Scott Campbell were interviewed in the story adding that, "The willingness of poor people to pay for Internet access underscores the idea that net access is not just "nice to have" but that it is increasingly seen as a necessity."

That all seems nice, but there’s no question that the Digital Divide is a huge problem globally. In Dr. Wysocki’s class we talked about the fact that only a small percentage of the world is connected to the internet, and of those, most aren’t connected with the same kind with the same speed: be it fiber-optic or broadband(or whatever their government allows). This can only mean one thing: the Digital Divide isn’t closing anytime soon.

In David Gauntlett and Ross Horsley’s “Web.Studies,” the Digital Divide in the US is referred to as a hot button political and academic issue that has been used in policy debate since 2001. The political debates stem from the UN’s global policy talks in the 1970’s about developing nations calling for a ‘New World Information and Communication Order’ (NWICO) to even out the playing field of the media industry to prevent the richer nations of ‘the West’ from domination, a topic that overlapped with years of academic debate.

After the 90's, those debates turned into what we know today as the Digital Divide. Since then, at the G8 Summit in Okinawa, Japan in July of 2000, a Charter for the Global Information Society was issued and a task force called the ‘Digital Opportunity Force’ was formed (DOTforce). The Summit aimed to focus more on the opportunities that face us with the divide, rather than simply focusing on the issue itself.

11-years later, here we sit: divided, as we’ve always been. But, the real question remains unanswered: what is REALLY dividing us? Yes, there are social and economic and geographical barriers, but what is all the hot debate about? If the Digital Divide is about education and fair opportunity for citizens of the world, why are those hot debates to close the divide centered around on figuring out how to allow more access to the internet (and other media), when studies show that computers help children computer skills- and significantly lower their test scores? According to Nicholas Carr, the author responsible for the widespread attention to the cognitive effects of the Internet and ICTs, "We need to be concerned about the Digital Divide, to be sure. But perhaps we should also be thinking about the Gutenberg Divide,” and I can’t help but agree with him… What do you think?