Digital Divide

In this week’s blog I will be looking into the topic of the digital divide. I will explore what the digital divide is and then I will try and answer the question, should the digital divide be closed or maintained?

The term 'digital divide' describes the fact that the world can be divided into people who do and people who don't have access to modern information technology, such as the telephone, television, or the Internet. The digital divide exists between those in cities and those in rural areas as well as between the educated and the uneducated, between economic classes, and globally, between the more and less industrially developed nations.

The advantages of closing the digital divide are that there becomes an increase in business trade across the world if everybody across the world has access to information technology. There is also an increase in job opportunities. These factors enable there to be less poverty across the world as everyone will have the latest information technology.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/22/gordon-brown-superfast-broadband

Gordon Brown has said that he wants people to have superfast broadband in their homes to help bridge the digital divide. He says: “the world available to those with superfast broadband will be unimaginably richer than to those without."
He believes that "Faster broadband speeds will bring new, cheaper, more personalized and more effective public services to people; it will bring games and entertainment options with new levels of sophistication; it will make accessing goods and services immeasurably easier,"



However there are some disadvantages with closing the digital divide. For example the cost of computers and other forms of technology is high and less developed countries may not be able to afford such technology. There is also an issue in places such as Africa where people are sacrificing food and clothes to keep their mobile phones running.

It is my opinion that something does need to be done about the digital divide. In England alone there are people who do not have access to information technology. The government’s new scheme goes a long way to reduce the divide. However on a more global scale it is difficult to solve the problem. The main reason for this is cost; the less economically developed countries are always going to struggle to afford the cost of new technology. Therefore I feel that larger, wealthier countries need to do more. This could be by donating technology or build places where people can access the internet easily. The closing of the digital divide will be advantageous to everyone across the world because surely a world that is better for the global economy and reduces poverty will be a good thing.