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Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................... 2
Local and Global................................................................................................. 2
Global Divide......................................................................................................... 2
Introduction........................................................................................................ 2
Factors Contributing to the Divide......................................................................2
Economic......................................................................................................... 2
Geographic...................................................................................................... 3
Political............................................................................................................ 3
Narrowing the gap.............................................................................................. 4
The impact of the digital divide on peoples lives and opportunities..................5
Economic......................................................................................................... 5
Social............................................................................................................... 6
Educational...................................................................................................... 7
The extent of the digital divide........................................................................7
Global Conclusion............................................................................................... 8
Local Divide........................................................................................................... 8
Introduction........................................................................................................ 8
Factors Contributing to the Divide......................................................................8
Economic......................................................................................................... 8
Geographic...................................................................................................... 9
Social............................................................................................................... 9
Narrowing the gap............................................................................................ 10
The impact of the digital divide on peoples lives and opportunities................11
Economic....................................................................................................... 11
Social............................................................................................................. 11
Educational.................................................................................................... 11
The extent of the digital divide locally..............................................................12
Local Conclusion............................................................................................... 12
Overall Conclusion............................................................................................... 12
Bibliography......................................................................................................... 12
Introduction
During this report I will explain what the digital divide are both globally and
locally and how it affects people around the world along with what organisations
are doing to help it. A definition of the digital divide: A term used to describe the
discrepancy between people who have access to and the resources to use new
information and communication tools, such as the Internet, and people who do
not have the resources and access to the technology. The term also describes
the discrepancy between those who have the skills, knowledge and abilities to
use the technologies and those who do not. The digital divide can exist between
those living in rural areas and those living in urban areas, between the educated
and uneducated, between economic classes, and on a global scale between
more and less industrially developed nations. (Webopedia) This definition tells
us that the digital divide is the divide between people who have access to
modern technology and those who dont, it also tells us different groups of
people that this affects such as rural and urban groups and more developed
countries along with less developed countries. The digital divide can easily be
measured by how many phone lines there are in a country and how big the
internet usage is from a country along with other technological factors.
Global Divide
Introduction
The global divide is the divide between the technologies different countries have,
more economically developed countries often have better access to technology
such as the internet while less economically developed countries dont have the
same level of access to technology. While this is true for most countries some do
break the pattern such as China which while being a successfully advanced
country blocks some of the internet from its citizens for multiple reasons.
main reasons the digital divide exists since countries that are poorer cannot
afford the technology to compete with the bigger countries. Poorer less
developed countries cannot afford to spend money on computers and phones as
they need to spend their money on more important things such as food and
shelter, a lot of these countries dont have free health care either so any spare
money is often saved for when it is needed most.
Poorer countries do not have the money needed to pay for the infrastructure that
makes their country able to use technology such as electricity and internet,
without this there isnt much point in countries spending money on computer
programs as they will not have the energy to run it or the internet to use on it.
Individually people in these countries do not have the funds necessary to pay for
internet and electricity let alone a computer, businesses in these areas might be
better off as they can afford to purchase electricity and internet but they
probably will not have the funds to purchase many computers for everyone in
the company or to afford automated production.
(, 2013)
((W163), 2013)
These two maps show that areas with lower levels of broadband penetration also
had a lower GDP, this is true for places in Africa and southern America along with
Asia and Russia, and areas with high broadband penetration like Australia,
Europe and North America all have a high GDP.
Geographic
Many countries that are less developed are often in areas where it would not be
geographically possible or economical to install internet and electricity there, for
instance mountainous countries would be difficult to install electricity to as it
would mean that you would have to install wires going through or around
mountains which would either be very expensive or impossible to do. Some
countries are also very rural with the majority of the population living in sparse
villages, this would also be difficult to install electricity and internet to as it would
mean having a large network spread out across the whole country which would
not be very stable. On the other hand some countries have a population living
close to each other in squalor; this would also be difficult as it would be hard to
install the wires. Overall Geographic factors can be the decider for an area
receiving vital infrastructure such as internet and electricity as it can make it
nearly impossible or make it cost a lot of money to install. Areas without access
to these basic infrastructures are at risk of driving away people who might
potentially be settling in these areas; Randeep Ramesh writes for the guardian
that almost 60% of urban areas are able to receive a cable-based broadband
service, while in villages and hamlets this drops to 1.5%. this was a big reason
that people were leaving rural areas to head to more urban places. (Ramesh,
2010)
Political
Some countries both developed and not-developed may block and limit the
access to technology for political reasons. China is a good example of this, some
websites are blocked in China because of the content that is put on them, for
instance YouTube is blocked in China for fear that the Chinese people may see
something the government does not want them to see; however China also
blocks some websites because it wants to promote its own companies, for
instance Facebook is blocked in China but Chinas own Facebook variants Renren
and kaixin001 support 100 Million users between them (Moore, 2010).
This is a picture comparison of kaixin001 and Facebook, the two are very similar
but Facebook is blocked in China in order to promote kaixin001.
Another example of this is North Korea, North Korea is a much poorer country
than China and many of its people do not have internet access or electricity;
many places in North Korea do not have running water either. However, even
though they do not have internet in many parts of North Korea with only 17 IP
addresses (Internet Statistics North Korea), the internet is still heavily censored,
this is because the government is a dictatorship and only sites that the
government deems safe can be shown to the general public, the websites that
the North Korean government deems safe are often filled with north Korean
propaganda and these websites are often under the governments control. In fact,
the only internet that the people can access is known as Kwangmyong, this
incorporates many features from the actual internet such as e-mail, news and
information on different topics such as science and maths.
(Mobile Internet)
This graph shows that the global use of mobile phones is increasing as the
population increases, soon both lines should meet as the mobile subscriptions
are increasing faster than the population is, this means that everyone will have
access to a mobile phone severely narrowing the digital divide.
Green Wi-Fi is a company which provides internet for people in developing
countries, they provide them with solar powered Wi-Fi hotspots hooked up to a
battery to keep power, when multiple of these are combined it allows people in
the community to create a broadband network which they can work with,
recently they set up Wi-Fi hotspots in a school in Haiti for the children and
instructed some of the teachers in how to use the internet to set up servers and
email addresses, they raised enough money to get 500 laptops up and running
and were also able to set up solar panels to charge them. (Green Wi-Fi
Corporation)
Another company which helps set up internet and technology in developing
countries is Invenoa a non-profit organisation which works to deliver computers
and broadband to developing countries which is sustainable they also help teach
people how to set up and use computers along with ways to use them
sustainably and at a low cost to the community using them. Since 2006 Invenoa
has brought this to 1,000 communities across Haiti and South Asia and has
helped bring it to 24 countries across the Sub-Saharan desert. (Invenoa
Organisation)
the latest movies and programs from out laptops, this means that not only does
technology make us more sociable but also allows us to get other entertainment.
Educational
Technology in countries also allows schools and teachers to teach their students
using technology which allows students to learn in a way that suits them,
whether it is through sound, activities or reading. Educational technology can
also help people learn since there are lots of different services designed for
different people with different needs; some websites are specifically designed to
help people with learning disabilities while others can be more advanced for
people who are doing a higher level of work. Technology in education can also be
better for the teachers themselves, teachers can use it for things such as
registers and resources to better teach the students and make their life easier
while students can access their work from home using remote access. Schools
without access to this technology are at a disadvantage as they cannot use the
resources that the internet and computer software can provide for education.
Children not having access to computers at home however are a major problem
in the digital age as it means they cannot complete work requiring access to the
internet or to be done with computers, it also means they cannot use social
networking to talk to their friends and socialise. Even worse from a survey from
the Times Educational Supplement half the teachers surveyed said that children
without the internet at home where at a significant disadvantage and had their
learning hampered. More than a million children in the UK do not have access to
a computer at home and nearly two million do not have access to the internet at
home. (BBC News, 2010) Overall a lack of technology in education will affect
future generations down the line as they wont have internet access either
meaning that the cycle repeats itself.
The extent of the digital divide
This pie chart shows that in 2012 Northern developed areas such as Europe and
Asia had the most internet users compared to third world regions such as Africa
and the Middle East showing than in third world countries they dont have access
to the same level of technology as people in first world countries. (Internet World
Stats, 2013)
.
This graph shows fixed broadband internet subscribers per 100 people for the
world, China and the UK, this shows that in the UK there is a high level of internet
subscriptions while in China the level of internet access is far behind us and
overall the rate of internet connection is terrible for the world as a whole,
however it is slowly increasing showing that the digital divide is closing, however
it could just be that the population is increasing faster in first world countries
rather in third world countries so there are more people in those countries using
the internet.
In 2012 the UK had 81.6 Million mobile phones; this is huge compared to third
world countries like Libya which had 10 Million cell phone users in 2011 showing
that first world countries have better access to technology than third world
countries as they have more money to afford mobile phones along with the
access to these things. (Central Intelligence Agency)
In the UK in 2011 there were 33.2 Million main lines in use compared to Libya
where in 2011 there were only 1 Million main lines this is a huge difference and
further reinforces the point that in third world countries they do not have the
same level of technology as they do in third world countries. (Central Intelligence
Agency)
Global Conclusion
The gap is closing between people who have access to technology and those
who dont have access to it; eventually everyone will have access to the same
level of technology and services however it could be a long time until this comes
to pass because countries access to technology is only growing slowly. However,
the global divide is definitely something which affects every country in the world,
some to a greater extent than others, overall the digital divide is one of the
biggest problems in the world that needs to be solved as it affects both
developed and developing countries and limits their growth along with the
abilities and lives of the people who live there.
I think the real concern is the quality of the technology people can access,
people in rural areas dont receive the same level of technology as those in
urban areas because in urban areas there is a higher level of broadband and
better access to electricity, this extends to the global divide too with many
countries having access to the internet and computers but not many of these
being a high standard.
Local Divide
Introduction
In this section I will talk about the local divide in a country, the reasons this
divide exists, the people trying to narrow the gap and the impact that this has on
the people affected by the local divide.
country there is more rural to urban migration since the internet and
infrastructure is better there, this is not what the government wants as the
population in big towns and cities is already very high and there isnt much
space remaining.
(Coverage Checker)
This map shows areas of the UK that have different levels of mobile internet,
areas around cities have access to 4G while everywhere else has to make do
with 3G because wither they havent expanded their yet or it is too costly to do
so.
Social
A big factor contributing to the global divide is the social aspect of it, people who
are much older can easily find new technology daunting and may be swayed by
what they hear in the media about the negative effects of using technology, this
can all mean that people who are old will not use new technology which adds to
the local divide in countries, a divide between the younger generations and the
older ones. There is also a divide between the ethnicity of users of technology in
countries, according to a study by the University of Leicester (er134, 2013) those
who identified themselves as white people were much more likely to use the
internet than those of other ethnicity such as Asian or Hispanic, the study says
Class was also related to using online banking services, while youth and
education were the most important factors in increasing the likelihood of using
the Internet to look for work. Ethnicity was only strongly linked to one of the
uses, with those describing themselves as White being more likely to purchase
goods or services online. However even though ethnicity affects peoples
technological use age is a much bigger factor from the same source they say
that Respondents who had stayed in full-time education beyond the age of 16
or had recently participated in learning were more than twice as likely to have
Internet access while those aged over 65 years were five times less likely to
report be able to go online at home. (er134, 2013) This shows that people who
are aged over 65 are very unlikely to have access to either a computer or the
internet while people who have stayed in education and are over 16 are very
likely to have access to the internet.
computers and ensure they work correctly they also work with many other
charities such as RSPCA and PDSA. (CftD)
students are also expected to have access to the internet and a computer at
home, this shows that those without these things are severely disadvantages
and is causing a divide between the students with access to the internet and
those without, this further causes a divide between the ability of the students,
those without access will perform worse in their work than those who have it.
(How Computer and Internet Access at Home Can Improve Grades, 2012)
This picture shows that between November in 2008 and May in 2013 the
average broadband speeds in the UK increased, the overall speeds
increased along with 30 Megabytes per second increasing, however lower
speeds decreased as more internet suppliers decided to upgrade to a
higher level of quality.
Local Conclusion
The digital divide is narrowing in Britain, urban places are still far better in terms
of infrastructure and technology but rural places have slowly being receiving
better infrastructure and access to technology, the quality of the access in the
Overall Conclusion
The digital divide is slowly getting smaller, the divide is however decreasing
more rapidly locally than it is globally and it will be a long time before the divide
has completely closed. The global divide hasnt moved much, less developed
countries still dont have access to the same level of technology as more
developed countries do with more developed countries having the infrastructure
and resources to effectively use technology, however locally the digital divide
has changed quite a bit, rural areas in the UK are getting access to the levels of
technology that had originally only been available to urban areas and the divide
has gotten a lot smaller, now it is only the levels of technology that needs to be
changed as both urban and rural have access to the same kind of technology.
The main concern now is that the global divide is much worse than the local
divide so that is what we should ideally be focusing on next or focusing on
making the technology we have access to a moment better by using high speed
broadband and 4G services.
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