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Without the Internet, almost half of humanity lacks access to modern education, financial institutions, decent work and equality. Technology is trying to solve the problem, but the gap will continue to grow over the years
Internet access, experts from the World Bank and the UN say, is an integral part of human rights. As of April 2021, only 4,72 billion people in the world (60% of the world’s population) could go online. This is the starting point of the digital divide (as well as the “barrier”, “gap” or “chasm”, from the English Digital Divide) – uneven access to computers, information, the Internet and telecommunications at any of the levels: global, regional, local, by definition Oxford Dictionary.
The Association of Internet Researchers writes that inequality has less to do with the fact that the Internet exists. It’s just a new name for an old phenomenon uneven distribution of income, which back in the XNUMXth century, the humanist Matteo Palmieri, in his dialogue “On Civil Life”, called normal, since “rich people are more talented and hardworking than poor people” (for the first time this idea was questioned by Karl Marx). At the end of the XNUMXth century, people started talking about the digital divide in relation to mobile phones. Since then, the term has been expanded and modified, and in many respects its interpretation depends on which side to look at it from.
How the problem of Internet access has changed
In 2011, the UN Special Rapporteur on the protection of the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, noted that the Internet accelerates the economic, social and political development of countries and contributes to the progress of mankind as a whole. At that time, almost 5 billion people did not have access to the Internet. Ten years later, the problem is not solved – 3,1 billion people remain “unconnected” – and at the current rate of growth in the number of online users, it will take at least another ten years to connect them.
Inequality starts with infrastructure, but it doesn’t end there. Of the 3,8 billion people who didn’t use the internet in 2018, 3,1 billion lived within range of a broadband signal, World Bank analysts say. Thus, access is less important than the high cost of computers and smartphones for vulnerable segments of the population or the availability of skills to access the Internet.
Jan van Dijk, professor of communication sciences at the University of Twente, identifies three levels of the digital divide. Prior to 2010, physical access was a research and policy priority first level. Later, more importance began to be given to the skills and ability to use the benefits of the digital world – this second level. Finally, third level began to take into account what different groups of people can get from the Internet (it also takes into account the negative aspects of use: hacking, cybercrime, bullying, disinformation, gambling addiction). Many countries are still solving the first level of the problem.
The digital divide in our country
Since 2014, the Information Infrastructure project of the Digital Economy national program has been operating in our country. It is being implemented by the Ministry of Digital Development in cooperation with Rostelecom and ER-Telecom. In 2021, the second stage started: by 2030, mobile communications and wireless Internet should be connected in 24 thousand settlements with a population of 100-500 people. Now they are connected to 12,5 thousand networks.
At the same time, according to Rosstat (the study was conducted among 60 thousand households), at the end of 2020, 28,6% of families did not have access to the Internet, and 38,3% did not have a computer. About a quarter of them (24,6% and 29,8%) would like to purchase both, but they do not have enough funds. The strongest digital divide was recorded in villages with up to 200 and up to 1000 people – 48,5% and 49,7% of families, respectively, go online.
Not only residents of remote settlements, but also cities do not have access to the Internet – 24% of urban families versus 43,5% of households in rural areas. According to other data (Public Opinion Foundation, 2021), almost one in four of our country has never used the Internet (24%).
COVID-19 made matters worse
With the mass transition of services to online, and people to remote work and education, inequality has become even greater. Some people were “turned off” from the world, their quality of life deteriorated. This applies to those whose jobs and businesses are incompatible with remote work, schoolchildren and students without access to the Internet.
According to the Auditor of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, in 2019, only 15% of Russian schoolchildren (out of a total of 16 million people) had access to e-learning, 2,5% studied using special distance technologies, and almost 400 rural schools did not have access to the Web , half of the remaining connections were too slow. The Russian Cities Digitization Index for 2020 showed a five-fold gap between the leaders of the ranking: Krasnodar and Yekaterinburg, and the bottom of the list, Magas and Nazran in Ingushetia, according to the Digital Life of Russian Regions 2020 report by the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo and EY.
The digital divide has also affected the financial sector. People without Internet access around the world have been forced to expose themselves to the risk of infection by standing in lines for social benefits. Many regional bank branches have closed, making it difficult to get basic financial services.
Another manifestation of inequality is the lack of information about vaccines (in our country, 23% of the population, most likely, will not be vaccinated) and the lack of vaccines themselves in developing countries, which threatens the emergence of more infectious strains of coronavirus.
Consequences of the digital divide
Education
To understand how the digital divide affects education, the American School of Education offers to compare two students: one at home has several gadgets and high-speed Internet, the other has one PC per family (including sisters and brothers who also need a computer) and a low connection speed . With a high probability, the first student will be more successful in school.
Reducing access to digital technologies entails:
- Low achievement. Low-income families have less access to information that helps with learning.
- Low competition. Students with internet access are more likely to enroll in colleges and universities.
- Low ease of learning. Wealthier students have access to better devices and face fewer barriers to learning.
- Various training costs. Students in poorer regions (such as underfunded schools) face more challenges and have to put in more hours to reach their learning goals.
The Institute of Development Studies writes that the level of education in a particular country affects its well-being. If 46% more than 75-year-olds in the 15 poorest countries achieved at least level 1 math (under PISA), the economy could grow by 2,1%, while 104 million people (not tied to age) could break out of the state. extreme poverty. If education is ignored, on the contrary, poverty and social exclusion will increase and undermine social security.
Employment
Inequality reduces the chances of finding a job and earning a decent income. Traditional search methods such as newspaper ads are becoming obsolete as more and more jobs are posted online. In our country, 30% of citizens look for work via the Internet, in the USA – up to 69%. The ability to search for a job online is directly dependent on Internet skills, which those who are deprived of the opportunity to be online will not have.
Having “computer literacy” skills also affects job chances, according to a 2021 University of Houston study. If people know how to do basic things like open email, copy files, work with Excel spreadsheets, they are more likely to earn better money, even if their position is not directly related to these skills.
You can acquire new skills (upgrade your qualifications) in online courses, but to participate in them you again need access to the network, a PC and the ability to work on it. In our country, only 3% of those who have the technical ability to do this study online, in the USA and Korea – 20%, in Sweden and Finland – 18% and 17%, in the UK – 14%.
Separately, there is the Workplace Digital Divide, or the digital divide in the workplace. WDD shows the gap between businesses that are at the forefront of technology development and companies that cannot invest in their employees, modern software and jobs. This leads to the fact that employees are 500% more likely to be disappointed in the employer and 600% more likely to change jobs. Their productivity and engagement suffer.
Financial opportunities
Financial institutions do not risk serving the poor and marginalized, so more than 2,5 billion people do not have access to financial services at all, and 1,7 billion cannot access a bank account because they do not pass the KYC barrier, that is, they cannot verify your identity for banks. This limits their ability to save and secure their future.
The absence of the Internet also deprives them of the tools that could help them earn additional income. They have no access to financial literacy materials, account management applications, virtual consultants. In our country, financial transactions via the Internet are performed by 39% of the population, in the USA – 68%, in Finland and Sweden – more than 90%.
Gender inequality
Research by DataReportal points to a significant “gender gap” in Internet adoption. In recent years, it has been declining, but women are still 20% less likely than men to use mobile Internet, follows from the GSMA Intelligence report for 2020 (in 2017, the gap was higher – 27%).
These conclusions are confirmed by the analysis of accounts in social networks (up to 90% of Internet users worldwide use them at least once a month). Where internet access is balanced between genders, women use social media more frequently. But if you look at the global distribution, it turns out that, on the contrary, they are 25% less likely to sit on Facebook and similar platforms.
In our country, according to the NAFI, men and women use computers and laptops for an equal amount of time and generally demonstrate the same level of digital literacy, but a quarter of the respondents in our country still believe that women are worse than men in the exact sciences and work in IT.
Can technology overcome inequality
Communications science professor Jan van Dijk believes that the problem of inequality will never be solved, given that a number of countries are already on the path to widespread adoption of 5G, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other technologies, and half of the world’s population does not have basic Internet access. When the entire population of the world has access to the Internet, the disparity in digital skills and the ability to use data will remain and, on the contrary, will continue to grow.
However, the development of technology (and technology companies) still contributes to the fight against inequality. For example, cloud giant Cisco is funding the Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) initiative. List of measures taken:
- Creation of smart cities.
- Broadband access.
- Increasing cybersecurity.
- Teaching people the skills needed in IT.
Cisco is installing free hotspots in libraries in Arizona, the Cayman Islands, Dallas, and other parts of the United States. There is a similar Google Next Billion Users program, which conducts research and creates products for novice Internet users.
Separately, it is worth mentioning Project Kupier from Amazon, Starlink from SpaceX and Athena from Facebook (the latter suspended the program indefinitely in 2021) – all of them involve the launch of thousands of satellites into Earth’s orbit that will provide Internet to hard-to-reach regions. While Elon Musk’s company has been the most successful, by mid-2021 there were more than 1 satellites in orbit (a total of 600 is planned to be launched).
However, experts are skeptical about the technology. First, it is paid. Starlink testers are offered to buy a satellite dish for $500 and pay $99 monthly. Secondly, the connection speed is far from the 10 Gb / s declared by Musk and barely exceeds 100 Mb / s (they promise to raise it to 2022 Mb / s by 300). The project fights the geographical aspect of the digital divide, but does not solve the problem at the root.
Finally, according to the World Bank, in 2020, 9,4% of people in the world (about 728 million) lived below the poverty line, that is, they received less than $1,9 a day. A pandemic could increase their number by another 150 million. A quarter of people had an income of less than $3,2 a day, and 5,5% of the world’s population had less than $40.
In our country, 12,1% of residents, or 17,7 million people, earn less than the subsistence minimum, but the government expects to halve the percentage in the coming years. The growth of the country’s economy (GDP in 2021 may add 4,2%, in a year – 3%) can also help in the fight against poverty, and hence the digital divide.