Introduction
The divide that modern technology has created. The digital divide concept talks about the inequalities in access, usage, and the skills to use the knowledge that is mostly connected to computers, mobile phones, and the Internet. If we define it without more context, we can talk about a gap between those who have and who do not have access to these mediums.
It has become more and more evident that this problem is not dichotomous; there are many ways to think about this division based on technological, social, educational, and material inequality. These have been more or less researched but in the last years, the focus has shifted more to the socio-demographic background and its implications on the individuals‘ lives. This supports the hypothesis that just access does not make or break this relationship, there are skills needed that the socio-economic background can provide and enable the individual to benefit from digital advancement.
Digital divide: definitions and dimensions
The digital divide refers to inequality and is often defined as: “the gap between those who have and do not have access to computers and the Internet”. However, since the term does not have a binary definition, we refer to multiple categories that can affect this. At first glance, we can see technological, material, social, and educational inequality. These sum up the most seen causes of inequality in our society.
The research has been moved toward the capabilities and skills. This region is tightly connected to education and societal changes since material possessions do not automatically give us the same opportunities. With this, we can see that the technology would be at fault for the digital divide but the information divide has existed for much longer, and thus we have to ask, what is the real inequality?
This has brought the researchers to socio-demographic background which, at the time, was not equally researched, leading to the new types of access discussed.
Material Access
The material access to computers and internet connection has been the most researched part of the digital divide. Through numerous surveys in the 1990s, a growing gap in access between people with high and low income was shown, even influenced by education which showed a connection with the majority and the minority ethnicities.
At the start of the 21st century, the physical divide started to decline, for the high-income and education group has reached their partial adoption and the low-income and education group started to catch up with “the trend”. Here, it can be seen that the physical access curve follows the S-curve of the adoption of innovations. This curve shows how the saturation of an invention moves through society. This can be seen with all new inventions and how the market adopts them in terms of usage.
Connected to the innovation curve, there are two models that predict the development of the digital divide in the future and how they will be perceived from the societal point of view, the normalization and the stratification model.
The normalization model talks about the disappearance of the differences between the low and high-income groups. It suggests that the differences grow only in the first stages of a new invention and that these will mitigate with growing saturation of the invention in the population and thus will lead to a closure of the physical access divide (material divide).
On the other hand, in opposition, the normalization model (The Digital Divide – an Introduction, n.d.)
says that the starting point of these two groups is different and thus will not lead to a closure of the divide but rather its reduction. But even so, the reduction is not that high and in the low-income and education groups, the saturation of the invention will never reach 100%, as it is an unrealistic option for these groups.
The access to digital technologies and the options to get the technology needed vary because of the distribution of resources – time, mental capacity, material access, social connections, and cultural experience. This limits the options to move between the strata and have a better future than the strata that we were born into.
Motivational Access
Before having a physical option to use a computer, there has to be motivation and additional value that will benefit the user. This is an issue, that most non-users face and thus do not wish to bridge the digital divide. It is mostly because of not seeing how a computer and further access to the internet would benefit their personal life.
A research done in Germany and America focused on the reasons people do not wish to own a computer and the results were as follows. The people who answered did not find any major usage opportunities and benefits to using such a medium (the additional value) or lacked the funds to purchase such.
When people already had a computer as a medium of communication and some sort of bettering themselves, they often struggled with mental problems connected to the usage. Here the phenomena of computer anxiety and technophobia come forward. Computer anxiety is a feeling of discomfort, stress, or fear experienced when confronting computers. Technophobia is a term overlooking and representing a general fear of technology and a distrust in its beneficial effects. This is further connected to the individual’s personality and their Big Five personality dimensions – agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion, and openness. These are known to be related to computer use, attitude, and overall stress.
Skills Access
Once the individual has acquired the motivation and physical access to computers and the Internet, they have to learn to use the computer itself to ensure the additional value of the technology. This raises the issue of skills. In the research, there are researchers such as Steyaert and van Dijk who distinguish three main forms of digital skills.
The first one is Instrumental/Operational skills. These show how people work with software and hardware, their technical coordination and manipulation with the technology; understanding of how computers are structured and how to use them physically.
Substantial Information skills that people use to locate, process, and evaluate useful information. This skill is activated when trying to answer questions based on a specific topic.
Lastly, they identify Strategic skills. These are built to grow the individual’s social and professional position online, giving them space to pursue self-development.
There is very little research on digital skills beyond the basic operational skill. This is because the surveys covering the topic are usually self-reported abilities with hardware and software, and such self-reports are not always reliable since people tend to think higher of their skills.
Overall research on skill access shows that the gaps in skills are much wider than access gaps and are still growing. This is connected to the high-income and education groups, which are more digitally literate than others.
Usage Access
Even with motivation, physical access, and skills to use such mediums as a computer and the internet, the actual use depends on different variables.
- Time of usage: how long is the medium used for
- Applications and Variety: this variable measures how diverse our usage portfolio is
- Broadband and Narrowband: how the level of our skills allows us to different patterns of use
- Active vs. Passive Use: do the users contribute with their content or do they passively consume content
It is very difficult to get reliable and useful statistics on the use of digital media such as a computer of the Internet because the meaning of “use” is defined differently by every researcher. However, the most useful data comes from time diary studies, tracking the time spent on specific activities.
With the connection to socio-demographic variables, people of higher social status, income, and education utilize this technology for work-related, business, and educational purposes, which classifies them as more advanced. The less-educated, low-income groups tend to stay with more simple applications for entertainment and communication. This resulting „usage gap“ is reminiscent of the „knowledge gap“ that formed in the 1970s, when people with more resources benefited from mass media more than those with fewer resources and lower social status. This ties into today’s broadband users, who tend to spend more time online use a diversified portfolio of the available applications, and actively participate in the virtual content.
(Van Dijk, J.A. (2006) Digital Divide Research, Achievements and Shortcomings. Poetics, 34, 221-235. – References – Scientific Research Publishing, n.d.)
Digital Literacy and its Inequality
Digital literacy is defined as the individuals‘ ability to find, evaluate, and usefully communicate information using mediums like computers with additional keyboards or digital mediums that are more easily portable like mobile phones. This ability requires both technical and cognitive skills that help process and further successfully and effectively utilize the given information. These are mostly helpful in content creation, analysis, and sharing.
In the past, digital literacy was focused on computers and basic digital skills regarding this medium. With the invention of social media and the internet, these have become more useful for everyday usage with the modern form of a digital medium, a mobile phone. A mobile phone only enhances basic digital skills and pushes users to more advanced, practical knowledge and usage.
Countries worldwide have displayed levels of digital literacy connected to their income. Low-income countries had lower rates of digital literacy than those with higher incomes. Even with this lack of worldwide digital literacy, the skills still need to be met to maintain the structure and efficiency of the labor market.
Currently, more than 90% of jobs in Europe require basic digital skills. Eurostat decided to measure them and their importance. They tried to quantify them through several datasets on EU citizens‘ digital competence. These datasets showed the level of skills throughout the different areas (information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety, and problem-solving) and quantified them by creating groups of “basic” and “above basic” skilled individuals. This research led them to the realization that more than 31% of Europeans still lack basic digital skills.
The ranges measured were from 30% to 80% averaging somewhere over 50%. With further research, the connections with gender, education, and income came up which should lead to encouragement of policymakers to target their solutions more.
(Digital Literacy in the EU: An Overview | data.europa.eu, 2023)
Education and digital literacy
During the research that Eurostat funded, a correlation between educational attainment and digital skills was seen. This showed the importance of the Digital Education Action Plan that was created during the COVID-19 pandemic to help students have similar opportunities, and to present opportunities for the education and training community on national, EU, and international levels.
(Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027), n.d.)
Since the pandemic, digital learning and dedication have seen significant growth and transformation that has led most educational institutions to hybrid learning; mixing online and in-person education. Thus, digital abilities are crucial for higher education success – this includes the usage of digital tools for education, the usage of online portals, and the usage of advanced research databases. Skills exercised with the use of creativity, problem-solving, collaboration, and critical thinking are known to build up the student´s future career prospects landing them a better and higher-paying job.
With this, there is a growing need for this education and skills in the curricula. The educational institutions can do the following to help their students.
To develop critical thinking skills, the students should be taught about digital content, data privacy, and how to detect and further avoid cyber threats. This will give students more autonomy in online movement which will exercise their analysis, evaluation, and referencing of the sources in real time. These skills will further enable the teachers to use immersive learning in class and home assignments, enriching the student experience; assignments can vary from making videos, animations, or podcasts to analyzing content relevant to the course.
With the advancements in the last years such as AI, ChatGPT, and other artificial intelligence mediums, there are new ways to implement these into education as well. When using this type of technology from the start of education, the students will get used to it and the educational system can encourage them to use these useful technologies in ethical ways that do not surpass the boundaries that the system builds. This will make artificial intelligence useful but will also encourage students to use it responsibly and ethically. With this usage, there are opportunities to use these technologies in home assignments as was mentioned before. It can create space for more collaborative work which the students can do online and thus will be more accessible to the commuting students.
With these opportunities, there also come the risks. Some are evident from the given situations but since we are talking about the future, we still cannot tell how they will develop and thus have to think about how to implement the fixes in countries in need.
Within this work, the most obvious problem is the resources for a big part of society. Many unprivileged areas have huge problems with access to mediums such as computers or the connection to the Internet and thus any of these implementations are out of reach for them. This also includes modem equipment at universities such as computer labs, newer software, and broadcast Internet.
Apart from physical access to the needed technology, there are generational restrictions that can make this process much harder. In this case, we are talking about uneducated and unprepared educators who are not equipped to work and teach with modern technology. This brings us to the importance of professional education and of willingness to learn new things to improve your work in your field and stay proficient with evolving digital tools and teaching strategies.
This shows the challenge of resistance, which could happen within the education staff or the students. Resisting the changes connected to the traditional way of teaching and learning because the concept of more modern education can be scary when a person does not have much experience with such.
Even if education would not adapt to the modern technologies that can be used for teaching and wouldn´t change the educator-to-student relationship, the student-to-student relationships will evolve with the new technologies that they use daily. With all this, education still evolves and has to change with the fast-moving world around it and adapt.
(Gripp, 2023)
Reproductive health challenges
The European Commission recognizes the importance of digital transformation in “improving access to health services in remote areas and by facilitating diagnostics and treatments”. (Countdown 2030, 2023)
Reproductive health is a critical aspect of public health that follows a range of issues including sexual health, family planning, and access to sexual and reproductive education. The lack of the needed education can lead to harmful situations in the individuals‘ lives; we are talking about early, and child marriage, unwanted pregnancies, STI transmission, and further gender-based violence. These issues have been highlighted at the Commission on Population and Development, the profound impact that lack of access to education has on individuals and communities, particularly in the context of achieving sustainable development goals.
As mentioned in the Education and Digital Literacy chapter, education plays a crucial role in promoting gender equality and further empowering minority and disadvantaged groups. The current state of education is still not perfect, but with inclusiveness in the curricula, the education and knowledge about experiences that others have can result in personal development of the students, helping them with dismantling stereotypes. This can be also conquered by the use of mobile phones, which provide a cost-effective, efficient, and highly suitable communication channel for communicating their issues with others. Mobile phones are also such an effective tool since they provide confidentiality and reduce stigma.
But in many developing countries, access to education is not the only problem. The other part of this equation is the journey to successfully completing the education. These are often threatened by socioeconomic barriers, cultural norms, and inadequate infrastructure which can hinder the student’s potential and result in them dropping out of their educational institution.
That is precisely why it is so important to make policies that are community-based and will help with specific problems that the community is facing. Universal policies are usually trying to urge strong legal structures that support sexual and healthcare education, but this does not have to satisfy some of the community’s needs. Bringing us to the effectiveness of the policies presented, there are questions regarding community engagement and whether the communities provide a supportive environment for learning about sexual and reproductive health. In religious communities, this engagement can be fostered through a religious leader.
With all this, on an international level, communities are encouraged to prioritize investment in adolescent health with the goal of sustainable development of education. For this to happen, we have to ensure that the reproductive health needs are being met, that the resources invested are allocated effectively, and that communities enable members to exercise their rights for quality sexual and reproductive health education.
(Lack of Access to Sexual, Reproductive Health Education and Rights Results in Harmful Practices, Impedes Sustainable Development, Speakers Tell Population Commission | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, 2023)
(Countdown 2030, 2023)
The Fertility Digital Divide
Since the spread of the Internet, especially the high-speed, broadcast Internet, there have been significant changes that can be seen in society. From the start of the 21st century, there have been researchers trying to see the impact that this has had and shortly found it everywhere, including family life.
The distribution of contraception and contraceptive technology, the access to education for women, and medical advances have a huge impact on reproductive changes and how the labor market has been occupied since women were given higher education and much more choice in family planning with access to sexual and reproductive health education.
Individuals, who do have access to the Internet, sexual and reproductive health information, and can freely decide about their bodies, are the majority. But there are still a lot of people who do not have these opportunities. Thus, a new form of division is created, The Fertility Digital Divide. This term calls for a definition. It would be something along the lines of a gap that divides the citizens who do have broadcast Internet and thus can work remotely and the ones who cannot apply this in their job or do not have access to broadcast Internet.
The technical abilities that can be seen are transforming family life but mostly for the parents that can work remotely. It brings us to the question of how people decide if they should or should not have children in the first place. Like this, the digital divide alters not only the labor market but also the family planning and options of most working individuals regarding parenthood.
Francesco C. Billari, Osea Giuntella & Luca Stella
In this paper, the authors, Francesco C. Billari, Osea Guintella, and Luca Stella analyze the impact of the diffusion of high-speed Internet on fertility choices in a country with a low fertility rate such as Germany. With the results, they observe and name the fertility digital divide.
For their method of choice, they used the instrumental variable approach by Falck et al. (2014). This approach is related to the unique historical and technological impacts of public phone infrastructure and obtains causal estimates of the impact of broadcast Internet on fertility. In this method, they used a retrospective dataset that contained information on the course of an individual’s life, including fertility history. To confirm the results of their analysis, they further used county-level data on total fertility.
Here is a short rundown of the research findings.
When analyzing the data, they found a significant link between broadcast internet and fertility. The relationship between variables is positive, which means that with access to broadcast internet, fertility rose. These results showed up in the 25 to 45 women´s age group.
The access also had a positive effect on the overall life satisfaction and time spent with children during weekdays. There was also an increase in home- or part-time work in this age group. Thus, the findings are consistent with the researchers‘ hypothesis that broadband access allows highly educated women, but not the less educated, to reconcile career and motherhood. Since this was seen mostly in women with high education, the results suggested the creation of the digital fertility divide.
If you are interested in further information about the findings, several statistics led to the conclusions above.
First, after gaining access to high-speed internet, the probability of women with high education giving birth within one year rose from 7.2 to 8.7 percent. On the contrary, the birth rate of less educated women has not moved from 6.3 percent. It was concluded that this is most likely because less educated women tend to work in less flexible jobs and thus cannot resort to home offices.
The whole research shows that women who have higher education can better reconcile work and family life since they can work remotely and thus the broadband does promote fertility for their group. This could be particularly important for the population of Southern and Central-Eastern Europe where the total fertility is below replacement.
(Billari et al., 2019)
Bridging the Divide
With all this information, one is clear. Marginalized communities, particularly women and girls, often face significant barriers to digital access and digital literacy which can and will affect their sexual and reproductive health education and opportunities in their professional lives. To address these disparities, there are countless projects all over the world trying to encourage institutional changes in both access to the Internet and access to sexual and reproductive health education.
Particularly for education, UNESCO has created a program called Information for All Programme (IFAP) and has been promoting digital literacy and inclusion through community-focused initiatives. These efforts are aligned with the IFAP Strategic Plan 2023–2029, which aims to expand digital access for marginalized communities, especially women, to establish digital inclusion. This will also address societal norms and biases, and promote informed communities which can be done through targeted actions such as workshops and classes.
Based on these guidelines, literacy initiatives have been tried in communities in China, Georgia, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. IFAP’s success depends on partnerships with governments, academic institutions, and local organizations, which can be challenging with isolated groups. That is why there is a need for support with IFAP so that they can ensure knowledge access is a global priority.
This only shows that the solution to the digital divide is not binary, just as the whole issue is not. It can be seen now that the profitable areas have been privately granted Internet and some form of digital presence that the other half of the population will be harder to reach. Most of these are low-density, low-income areas that are no longer as profitable, and private companies do not see the potential of building an infrastructure there. Hence there is a need for new and innovative ways to bring the connection to those areas.
Ideally, this would be done through community networks which will introduce technology and education as something useful, and thus the acceptance could be much better and higher than from an outsider’s standpoint. If this initiative works, the health disparities in healthcare, education, and agriculture could be significantly reduced by affordable telehealth and online education options that would bring local solutions to rural areas (these initiatives have been applied in Nepal, Zimbabwe, and Hawaii). From these areas, there have been people talking about the significant improvement in their connection and being in control of their options with work and social connectivity.
(Muller & De Vasconcelos Aguiar, 2023b)
Conclusion
To conclude the essay and the information learned about the topic, I would like to present the complexity of this issue.
With all the presented information, we learned that the digital divide is a complex topic that comes with the spread of digital mediums and the Internet. The research that began with the obvious consequences showed that it has many interlinks with socio-economic situation, education access, psychological dimensions of community-based societies, and the individual’s ability and skills to use digital mediums for their development. This somewhat complicated the research and showed that there will have to be institutional guidelines to tackle the issue presented and evolving.
One of the presented issues with the digital divide alone is access. Research has shown, that there are many forms of it. We talk about physical access the most, but we can see that physical access is not the only variable in this, presenting motivational or personal skill access. If people lack these, they still cannot use the medium to their advantage and thus it is crucial to implement strategies to extend these into the communities in need.
With the communities, we learn about socio-demographic factors. The divide here stems from the education of the individual. When an individual is highly educated, their probability of digital literacy is much higher than when dealing with a low-educated individual. To cross this divide, some implementations need to be put into action, specifically community togetherness and openness to further education. This can also help the community with education regarding sexual and reproductive health, which is a widely spread issue here.
Despite recognizing the importance of addressing the digital divide, significant barriers remain. These include inadequate resources in educational institutions, generational gaps in technological advancement among educators, and resistance to change within traditional communities and educational institutions. Overcoming these challenges requires institutional changes that not only provide access to technology to more students and people who are willing to learn but also further enhance the skills and confidence needed to use the technology for their own good.
In the end, it is important to address the digital divide’s importance in our society and to take a stance not only on the issue of physical access but also on all the variables mentioned above. Policymakers must prioritize creating community-based opportunities for all individuals to engage with technology as informed users, thereby creating and maintaining an inclusive space that allows them to benefit from it.
Literature
Muller, C., & De Vasconcelos Aguiar, J. P. (2023, August 31). What is the digital divide? – internet society. Internet Society. https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2022/03/what-is-the-digital-divide/
The digital divide – An introduction. (n.d.). Universiteit Twente. https://www.utwente.nl/en/centrefordigitalinclusion/Blog/02-Digitale_Kloof/
Digital literacy in the EU: An overview | data.europa.eu. (2023, December 6). data.europa.eu. https://data.europa.eu/en/publications/datastories/digital-literacy-eu-overview
Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027). (n.d.). European Education Area. https://education.ec.europa.eu/focus-topics/digital-education/action-plan
Gripp, M. (2023, November 20). What is Digital Literacy and its Role in Education? — Futurize. Futurize. https://www.futurize.studio/blog/what-is-digital-literacy-and-its-role-in-education
Lack of access to sexual, reproductive health education and rights results in harmful practices, impedes sustainable development, speakers tell Population Commission | Meetings coverage and press releases. (2023, April 11). https://press.un.org/en/2023/pop1106.doc.htm
Countdown 2030. (2023, July 28). How digitalisation and sexual and reproductive health and rights can strengthen one another – Countdown 2030. https://www.countdown2030europe.org/resources/how-digitalisation-and-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-can-strengthen-one-another/
Billari, F. C., Giuntella, O., & Stella, L. (2019). Does broadband Internet affect fertility? Population Studies, 73(3), 297–316. https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2019.1584327
