Warshauer, Mark. 2002. Reconceptualizing the digital divide. First Monday 7(7).
Accessed: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/967/88
This article chronicles some ultimately ineffective ways to bridge the so-called 'digital divide,' or the divide between more affluent communities who have access to technology and those who do not. Unsupervised technological education often does not reinforce educational values, as manifested in the example of a self-teaching kiosk in India; even giving free computers to residents of rural Ireland did little to help the population understand the value of information technology; computers sat in boxes at an Egyptian university when no trainers existed to teach students how to use them.
But the 'digital divide' is not a chasm but a continuum and is inexorably related to race and class status. Barriers are manifested not simply in the cost of hardware, but also software and broadband access. These gradients of IT awareness are similar to those of literacy as a whole, or the difference between being able to decipher words vs....
This is reflected in how certain types of social media are preferred by specific ethnic groups or ages over others -- for example, Twitter is often used by African-Americans or persons less likely to have access to home computers, since it can be easily used with a mobile phone, unlike Facebook. However, the fact that mobile applications have gained new legitimacy for serious business promotion as well as 'fun' may mean that the distinctions between different levels of technological literacy may be breaking down. The more portable and cheaper it becomes to access information, the less important the distinctions discussed in the article may be.
However, this does not mean an end to the digital divide continuum. Not knowing how to use business applications on a computer will hinder one's job prospects; even having friends more or less interested in computers (which often is manifested as a gender divide) can affect self-perceptions of technological efficacy.
Gilbert, Eric, Karrie…
