If you’re unaware, there is a thing called the digital divide. The term describes the gap between people who have the means and knowledge to effectively utilize technology and those who do not.
When I first heard the term several years ago I immediately thought of it as a generational thing. There are, after all, people who grew up using technology and those who have been introduced to it later in life. And while I still think this accurate, the bulk of people on the far side of that gap are there in part because of the unaffordability of broadband access in the U.S.
About a week ago the BBC ran this story that discusses the reasons why Americans may be paying more for our internet. The thrust of it is that we don’t encourage competition among telecommunications companies at a local, municipal level. In the smallish town that I live in we have only ever had one cable company. They own the infrastructure and can charge whatever they want since they are effectively a monopoly.
Now, I could get internet service from a variety of other sources in the area, but the pricing is basically the same (within $5 or so of what I pay now), so switching doesn’t make much sense. Scott Cleland, chairman of NetCompetition and a source quoted in the article, equates choices of providers and tiered service to complaining that “you only have access to a Rolls Royce when you also have Fords, Chevys, and Cadillacs to choose from.” But the fact of the matter is the difference in the price of internet service is negligible for most of us and the U.S. still pays more for service comparable to what other countries have.
You’ll find people that disagree. There’s this op-ed piece in The New York Times for example. In it, Richard Bennett argues that things aren’t as bad as some make them out to be. He mentions vast improvements made over the last three years and talks about how lower population densities in the U.S. contribute to higher costs, also mentioning the fact that competition drives improvement to service. He lays most of the blame for high pricing on “low subscribership.”
“The major causes for low subscribership, as extensive survey research shows, are low interest in the Internet and minimal digital literacy. And too many American households lack the money or interest to buy a computer. As a result, more Americans subscribe to cable TV and cellphones than to Internet service. Our broadband subscription rate is 70 percent, but could easily surpass 90 percent if computer ownership and digital literacy were widespread.”
I don’t buy it. New York City has about 17,000 people per square mile. Compare that to Riga where there are around 6,000 people per square mile. Then note that the two areas have similar upload/download speeds and network technology, but vastly different costs:
And the bit about “subscribership” is bullshit too. It’s not a lack of interest or digital literacy that cause the majority of people to opt out of buying internet access, it’s the cost of internet access that contributes to low digital literacy rates.
Take a look at Pew’s home broadband research for 2013. You can see that age is a contributing factor, but the starkest differences in the rate of adoption comes under the headings for education and household income. If people can’t afford technology or access to the internet, it’s no surprise that they’re not interested in it or don’t know how to use it. Bennett has it backwards.
Demographic info for home broadband adoption.
The result of all of this is that we have a large segment of the population unable to afford what has become a necessity — try applying for a job today without access to the internet or email. Public libraries do what they should to mitigate the effects of this by providing free internet access, shared public computers, basic computer skills classes, and online learning resources, but it’s an uphill battle. Many schools in areas where families live below the poverty line have nowhere near the one-to-one ratio of students to computers that more affluent districts aspire to.
The problem is largely invisible, just as it was to me a few years ago when I thought only senior citizens had trouble navigating the web. Since then I have witnessed many people my own age struggle to upload a resume to a job application or print out a copy of their check stub from work — which is another thing that has come to only exist online. The digital divide is real, and its ridges and canyons, like so many other metaphorical chasms today, separate the haves from the have-nots.
In Libris, Veritas 