What does the term Digital Divide mean?

 

“Digital Divide” refers to the gap between those who can benefit from digital technology and those who cannot. ”Closing the Digital Divide” therefore means more than just giving the poor the same technologies already received by the rich. Closing the Divide involves restructuring the telecommunications sectors in each nation so that broadband’s benefits can flow to the masses, not just the elite urban sectors of emerging markets. 

 

It took digital-divide researchers a whole decade to figure out that the real issue is not so much about access to digital technology but about the benefits derived from access. Examining the situation more closely, it turns out that upper-to-middle classes have high-quality access to digital technology because the “80/20 factor” (in which eighty percent of profit is made by serving the most affluent 20%) causes technology designers to work hard at creating “solutions” specifically for the affluent. The low-income masses were ignored because corporate strategists (till now) assumed that designing modes of access, Last Mile solutions, devices and apps for them would not be profitable. The result is that even where the poor are provided access to digital technology, they receive superficially “localized” versions of products and services intended for the rich. In other words, inappropriate access could actually harm the poor. In effect, extending un-meaningful access to digital technologies to the rural sector of emerging markets could actually widen the digital divide. Consider, for example, internet cafes. Years ago, many pointed to their spread into the rural sector as an example, demonstrating that the digital divide was shrinking. When a local youth in a Cambodia village ignores his school work and instead spends his evenings playing violent videogames with his peers, he is not really benefiting from digital technology. Gaming technology that has been designed for youth from wealthy families may actually add to the causes of poverty and accelerate the exodus of the rural poor into cities already bursting at the seams.

 

The new view is that closing the digital divide will be most effective if governments and businesses work together to change the incentives that shape digital markets. They could team up on new strategic alliances, funded by public-private partnerships for rural health care, quality education, etc. By so doing, the “digital have-nots” may be able to reap many of the same benefits as the wealthy.

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