Digital Divide Hurts America, Furthers Inequality, Officials Say
"The current state of connectivity feeds inequality,” said National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling Tuesday at a Washington Post event on the country’s lingering digital divide. That sentiment was shared by every official and educator who took the stage, as they struggled with how to increase broadband connection and adoption among those who lack access, can’t afford it, or say they don’t want it.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The digital divide feeds the disparity in educational opportunity instead of alleviating it, Sperling said. “It doesn’t have to be that way.” Technology and broadband can have an “equalizing” effect, ensuring everyone has access to the same content and same opportunities wherever they are, he said. It can also help with the “tracking” dilemma felt by several schools, where they separate the kids who are doing well and move them into gifted classrooms. That doesn’t help address social inequality, he said. “We want kids who aren’t doing as well to be inspired by the kids who are doing better.” In a “modern day classroom,” that’s possible when each student can use technology to work through material at his or her own pace, he said.
The key to closing the digital divide is making technology affordable, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said. Clyburn suggested ISPs offer tiered pricing plans to make broadband more accessible to all. The FCC is doing what it can, reforming the USF and coming in with an “infusion” of resources to bridge the gap where a business case cannot be made, but that won’t be enough, she said. “It’s going to take a community of a whole.”
In the next few generations, “I don’t know where we're going to be unless we connect up everyone to broadband,” said Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif. Congress understands the importance of broadband, she said, but it’s tough to make progress in this atmosphere of a broader fiscal fight. Matsui touted legislation she introduced that would let households that qualify for Lifeline support choose between applying that subsidy to landline, mobile or broadband service.
Programs to expand broadband adoption are not just about how to use technology, said Richard Culatta, director of the Office of Educational Technology at the Department of Education. “It’s not just digital literacy; it’s digital citizenship. It’s how are you becoming good citizens online. How are we building citizens who know how to think and write and reason and interact in digital spaces? And that’s what we need to be successful in the future of this country.”
When his organization first started measuring broadband adoption, the primary reason for non-usage was lack of access, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Now, he said, it’s adoption: People don’t necessarily see the value, or are “a little bit scared” about using tech they don’t understand, to the point where one in five people who don’t use the Internet say it’s just not relevant to them. Yet for those who do use broadband, he said, it’s become a “utility.”
There’s a “tremendous fear” of using a computer among people who haven’t used one before, said Laura Breeden, NTIA program director-public computing and broadband adoption. What they don’t realize, she said, is that broadband is crucial for so many things, such as finding a job, applying for government benefits and being an informed consumer. “It’s not just about Facebook,” she said. “It’s not just so I can see pictures of my friend’s cat doing something funny.”
The digital divide is complex, said David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast: Without access to broadband at home, “full participation” in American society is compromised. “If access to the Internet five or 10 years ago was a luxury, that is no longer the case today,” he said. In education, it leads to an achievement gap that’s an issue of “fundamental fairness and equal opportunity.” Broadband adoption rates are “starkly different” across racial and socioeconomic lines, he said. Comcast’s Internet Essentials program has connected a million Americans to the Internet over the past two years, and 98 percent of the families surveyed say their kids use the Internet to do homework, he said. Statistics like that are “fundamentally depressing” to Cohen. “How were they doing their homework before they had Internet access at home?” That’s a real life picture of the broadband gap, he said. “Our work is far from finished.”