I recently stumbled across a Digital Divide Network site that directed me to a “How Broadband Changed My Life” contest entries page.  The stories vary but several come from  rural America and explain how the internet opened up their worlds and minds.  What I find poignant about these anecdotes is that they express so purely and clearly the issue of the digital divide in a way I haven’t spent much time thinking about it myself.

As a New Yorker who was checking out AOL teen chat rooms in 1995 when my family got our first computer and dial-up connection to the internet (oh the memories of the unbearably slow, screeching connections and fights with siblings over that treasured phone line) the digital divide to me today immediately makes me think of people from under-privileged areas of NYC surrounded by broadband and wireless connections that they do not have the resources to enjoy themselves.  I have a strong sense that to much of the general public the digital divide describes an international problem concerning tribal villages in places like Africa that lack running water, let alone computers and WiFi.  No matter what part of the world’s population one thinks of as representative of the divide, the issue does not get as much coverage or research as it warrants.

The internet is so widely used and depended upon by everyone who has access to it that by neglecting those left behind we are only damaging the future of our country, and the world. If the millions of us who are already using the internet for everything continue in this direction, those who do not have access, or even those who have very limited access, will increasingly lag behind in the job market, in acquiring information, and in communicating thus exasperating problems of unemployment, ignorance and disconnection this country already experiences. 

The United States has more than 75 million broadband subscribers according to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report conduced in June 2008.  We have more broadband subscribers than any other country involved with the study, but 75 million is not even half of our population of 305 million.  According to the OECD the U.S. has 10.1 broadband subscribers per 100 residents.  This number places us pathetically half way down the list of 30 countries studied,  Denmark is number one at 22.5 per 100 people and Mexico is 30^th at 3.1.

Health care, taxes, social issues, the environment and jobs are important to the country, but hopefully the next president can find some time to address the problem of the digital divide because there is a lot of opportunity in the digital and technological fields to create jobs and help our country grow economically and socially. 

So as jobs are cut and stores are shut down, the internet will grow even more.  As more money pours into the web and less elsewhere, more IT people, cable guys, tech support, etc. will be needed.  The South Bronx Job Corps has a number of programs to help young people earn their GED’s and a couple of programs that focus on technology and computer training.  I hope to learn more about them and get back to this issue soon.