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Research papers on The digital divide

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  1. Bridging the Digital Divide: How Internet Access Shapes Human Capital Development and Economic Inequality

    Jinyan Liao, Sameer Kumar, F. Furuoka · 2025 · e-Bangi Journal of Social Science and Humanities · 2,873 citations

    This study investigates the relationship between the digital gap and the development of human capital concerning economic inequality. Despite the swift progression of the digital economy, which presents novel chances for knowledge acquisition and skill development. The unequal access to the internet has deepened disparities in human capital across different socioeconomic groups, thereby contributing to broader economic inequality. The digital divide is primarily influenced by a combination of factors: access to technology, digital literacy, and financial circumstances. We examine specific regions and demographic groups to analyze the impact of digital skills on human capital development and

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  4. Gradations in digital inclusion: children, young people and the digital divide

    Sonia Livingstone, Ellen Helsper · 2007 · New Media & Society · 1,340 citations

    Little academic and policy attention has addressed the `digital divide' among children and young people. This article analyses findings from a national survey of UK 9—19-year-olds that reveal inequalities by age, gender and socioeconomic status in relation to their quality of access to and use of the internet. Since both the extent of use and the reasons for low- and non-use of the internet vary by age, a different explanation for the digital divide is required for children compared with adults. Looking beyond the idea of a binary divide, we propose instead a continuum of digital inclusion. Gradations in frequency of internet use (from non and low users through to weekly and daily users) are

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  5. The first-level digital divide shifts from inequalities in physical access to inequalities in material access

    Alexander Johannes Aloysius Maria van Deursen, Jan AGM van Dijk · 2018 · New Media & Society · 1,154 citations

    For a long time, a common opinion among policy-makers was that the digital divide problem would be solved when a country's Internet connection rate reaches saturation. However, scholars of the second-level digital divide have concluded that the divides in Internet skills and type of use continue to expand even after physical access is universal. This study-based on an online survey among a representative sample of the Dutch population-indicates that the first-level digital divide remains a problem in one of the richest and most technologically advanced countries in the world. By extending basic physical access combined with material access, the study finds that a diversity in access to devic

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  7. eHealth Literacy: Extending the Digital Divide to the Realm of Health Information

    Efrat Neter, Esther Brainin · 2012 · Journal of Medical Internet Research · 911 citations

    BACKGROUND: eHealth literacy is defined as the ability of people to use emerging information and communications technologies to improve or enable health and health care. OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to explore whether literacy disparities are diminished or enhanced in the search for health information on the Internet. The study focused on (1) traditional digital divide variables, such as sociodemographic characteristics, digital access, and digital literacy, (2) information search processes, and (3) the outcomes of Internet use for health information purposes. METHODS: We used a countrywide representative random-digital-dial telephone household survey of the Israeli adult population

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  8. Second-Level Digital Divide: Differences in People's Online Skills

    Eszter Hargittai · 2007 · Defence Science Journal · 842 citations

    Much of the existing literature on the digital divide – the differences between the haves and have nots regarding access to the Internet – limits its scope to a binary classification of technology use by only considering whether someone does or does not use the Internet. To remedy this shortcoming, in this paper I look at the differences in people’s online skills. In order to measure people’s online ability, I assigned search tasks to a random sample of Internet users from a suburban county. Findings suggest that people search for content in a myriad of ways and there is a large variance in whether people are able to find various types of content on the Web and how long they take to complete

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  9. Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society, and Participation

    Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert, Ramona McNeal · 2007 · 737 citations

    This analysis of how the ability to participate in society online affects political and economic opportunity finds that technology use matters in wages and income and civic participation and voting. Just as education has promoted democracy and economic growth, the Internet has the potential to benefit society as a whole. Digital citizenship, or the ability to participate in society online, promotes social inclusion. But statistics show that significant segments of the population are still excluded from digital citizenship. The authors of this book define digital citizens as those who are online daily. By focusing on frequent use, they reconceptualize debates about the digital divide to inclu

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  10. From the ’Digital Divide’ to Digital Inequality: Studying Internet Use as Penetration Increases

    Paul DiMaggio and Eszter Hargittai · 2001 · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · 492 citations

    The authors of this paper contend that as Internet penetration increases, students of inequality of access to the new information technologies should shift their attention from the divide - inequality between haves and have-nots differentiated by dichotomous measures of access to or use of the new technologies - to digital inequality, by which we refer not just to differences in access, but also to inequality among persons with formal access to the Internet. After reviewing data on Internet penetration, the paper describes five dimensions of digital inequality - in equipment, autonomy of use, skill, social support, and the purposes for which the technology is employed - that deserve additio

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  12. Comparing Digital Divides: Internet Access and Social Inequality in Canada and the United States

    Philip N. Howard, Laura Busch, Penelope Sheets · 2010 · Canadian Journal of Communication · 109 citations

    What is the best way to measure and track the digital divide, in a comparative manner, over time? What impact have differing policy interventions had on the digital divide in Canada and the United States? We offer a way of benchmarking equality in Internet access using Gini coefficients and demonstrate that overall the digital divide has been closing in both countries. We find that in terms of income, the digital divide in Canada has closed most dramatically, and that in terms of education, the digital divide remains most pronounced in the United States. We suggest that Canada has been more successful in reducing the concentration of Internet access among wealthy educated populations, in par

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  15. The Digital Divide in Brazil and Barriers to Telehealth and Equal Digital Health Care: Analysis of Internet Access Using Publicly Available Data

    L. Nakayama, W. Binotti, Naira Link Woite, et al. · 2023 · Journal of Medical Internet Research · 67 citations

    Background The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the use of digital solutions in medical care, especially for patients in remote areas and those requiring regular medical care. However, internet access is essential for the implementation of digital health care. The digital divide is the unequal distribution of access to digital technology, and the first level digital divide encompasses structural barriers. Brazil, a country with economic inequality and uneven population distribution, faces challenges in achieving internet access for all. Objective This study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the first-level digital divide in Brazil, estimate the relationship between variables, and id

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  16. The Association Between the Digital Divide and Health Inequalities Among Older Adults in China: Nationally Representative Cross-Sectional Survey

    Mengqiu Wu, Yongxi Xue, Chengyu Ma · 2025 · Journal of Medical Internet Research · 47 citations

    Background Health inequalities among older adults become increasingly pronounced as aging progresses. In the digital era, some researchers argue that access to and use of digital technologies may contribute to or exacerbate these existing health inequalities. Conversely, other researchers believe that digital technologies can help mitigate these disparities. Objective This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the digital divide and health inequality among older adults and to offer recommendations for promoting health equity. Methods Data were obtained from the 2018 and 2020 waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. Physical, mental, and subjective health wer

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  17. The persistent educational digital divide and its impact on societal inequality

    Glenn L. Pierce, Paul F. Cleary · 2024 · PLOS ONE · 38 citations

    Computers and the Internet are widely recognized as fundamental to academic and future success on both the individual and the societal level. Moreover, the academic success of school-age children is now increasingly tied to access to educational technology, a reality that became even more apparent during the pandemic. While academic performance is viewed as the major outcome of using educational technology, this study looks at a crucial early stage in the educational technology value chain, specifically; 1) to what extent do students use computers and the Internet in their homes and at school and 2) what is the extent and nature of disparities in student access to educational technology. Thi

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  20. Digital divide as an explanatory variable for dropout in higher education

    Sandra Patricia Barragán Moreno, Alfredo Guzmán Rincón · 2025 · International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education · 18 citations

    The digital divide is a multidimensional phenomenon that significantly affects access, learning, and retention in higher education. This study aimed to simulate the effects of digital inequality on student dropout rates in undergraduate programs. Using a System Dynamics methodology, a causal loop and a stock-and-flow model were developed and calibrated with empirical data from Colombia, including dropout rates, enrollment levels, household income, internet connectivity, and availability of digital devices. The model was validated structurally and behaviorally, and sensitivity analyses were conducted. Simulations were performed under three scenarios: variations in household income (affecting

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  22. Measuring the Digital Divide: A Neighborhood-Level Analysis of Racial Inequality in Internet Speed during the COVID-19 Pandemic

    Stephen Rodriguez-Elliott, Karl Vachuska · 2023 · Societies · 8 citations

    Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, internet access has been vital to ensuring individuals can work from home, attend online school and maintain contact with loved ones. While research has already shown that inequalities exist regarding who has access to the internet, less research has used actual internet speed test data to examine neighborhood inequalities in internet access, and even less research has explored trends related to this during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a dataset containing over 100 million internet speed tests in the United States, we analyze neighborhood-level variation in internet speed. We find that neighborhoods with higher proportions of Black residents tend

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  23. The Effect of Internet Infrastructure’s Impact on Foreign Investment Inequality: Based on Digital Divide Perspective

    Yizhe Hao, Weijian Liu, Min Liu · 2025 · SAGE Open · 7 citations

    Internet infrastructure has gradually become a driving force for foreign investment in the digital age, but it also brings about risks for the digital divide. This study innovatively investigates how Internet infrastructure has influenced foreign investment inequality across 30 provinces in China. It also explores pathways to reduce the foreign investment inequality within the digital divide. The digital divide is also introduced innovatively with matrix form across the econometric model. Results provide that Internet infrastructure reduces the inequality of foreign investment inflows at the national level. Further, Internet infrastructure makes foreign investment the convergence effect in C

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  24. Digital home-lessness: Exploring the links between public Internet access, technological capital, and social inequality

    Matt Comi, Sarah Smith, Walter Goettlich, et al. · 2022 · Current Sociology · 7 citations

    Millions of individuals in the United States without a computer or broadband at their residence must rely on public libraries for their Internet access. Drawing on a rich data set of interviews and participant observation at three public libraries, we explore how individuals navigate these complex settings and how they profoundly shape their digital lives and experiences, one we characterize as digital home-lessness. In this article, we identify three themes that characterize the relationship between library computer use and digital home-lessness: lifeline encompasses the diverse set of activities that require computer and broadband access; negotiating access focuses on usability, privacy, a

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