[NIFL-TECHNOLOGY:1414] Re: Digital Divide - A Skills or Access Divide?

From: Emily Hacker (emily_hacker@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 10 2000 - 12:20:23 EST


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From: "Emily Hacker" <emily_hacker@hotmail.com>
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Subject: [NIFL-TECHNOLOGY:1414] Re: Digital Divide - A Skills or Access Divide?
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Agit and colleagues:

Dinesh D’Souza’s comments that getting Internet access is equivalent to 
having telephones and TVs doesn’t hold up to actual ownership and usage 
statistics:

Percent of US households with telephones = 93.9 (source TIAP: Calculations 
and Sources for Revving up the Communications Economic Engine: Household 
Services, Monthly Bills, and Barriers to Competition) 
http://www.tiap.org/hhbcns.htm#figure1

Percent of with U.S. households with TV’s = 98.3 (source: TIAP: Calculations 
and Sources for Revving up the Communications Economic Engine: Household 
Services, Monthly Bills, and Barriers to Competition)

Percent of U.S. households with Internet access = 41.5 (source Falling 
through the Net: Toward Digital Inclusion, NTIA, 2000) 
http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org/res.adp

Percent of Internet users with household incomes under $25,000 = 9.7% of 
overall Internet population (source: Web Usage Patterns by Household Income 
Media Metrix Report, August 
2000)http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org/metrix_res.adp

The communities most excluded from high speed and advanced 
telecommunications services are:

Rural Americans
Inner city consumers
Low-income consumers
Minority consumers
Native American Communities
Consumers in US territories

(Source: FCC Report on the availability of high speed and advanced 
telecommunications services)http://fccadvancetelecom.adp

Wiring the Rural West, by David Plotnikoff is excellent article on the 
digital divide struggles that exist for rural Americans. 
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/special/ruralwest

D’Souza is correct that there is a skills divide, but it exists alongside 
divides in access, awareness, literacy, education, income, race, gender, age 
and geography.

Thanks for bringing D’Souza’s comments to our attention, Agit.

--Emily

******************************************************
Emily Hacker
Moderator - NIFL Technology List
Director of Learning Technologies
F.E.G.S
315 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10013
(212)366-8122
emily_hacker@hotmail.com
ehacker@fegs.org

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