The Digital Divide

During the year 2000 there was a leap of 201 million to 3003 million internet users in the span of two months. This seems like a large number but in fact it is only a small fraction of the worlds population. One statistic said that in early 2000 there were still about 96% of the worlds population offline. In the span of 11 years I am sure that number has changed quite a bit, but my guess is that it is still a minority percentage.

In a 1999 white paper from the US Department of Commerce, it was suggested that in the time since the 1997 preceding 1997 white paper the “access digital divide” had become more evident (National Telecommunications). In the document it shows that the people who have been using computers for some time are getting far more advanced than the population without access to computers. In the paragraph below you will see the gap broken down in five different ways.

Income: Email usage had increased over the time period of this study as well as the income level. Of the people in upper level incomes about 44% used email in 1998. In the lowest level only about 6.2% used email during that same year.
Race/Origin: All groups growth increased by about 3.5 times or more. Whites led the way with Hispanics and Blacks following behind. Whites led all areas of the country whether it be urban or rural.
Age: Senior citizens used email the least amount but over the span of 4 years the usaged quadrupled.
Education: There was a huge correlation between email and the level of education. The digital gap between elementary school-educated and college-educated households grew from 8.7% in 1994 to 37.5% in 1998.
Household type: All household types increased except male householders with children. Usage by households with married couples and children led all categories throughout the period by a substantial margin and equalled 25.9% in 1998. During the 4 year span, rural area usage trailed other areas of household types except for the female householder with children category.