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Guest Commentary March 11, 2002
Closing the Digital Divide
The Honorable Joseph Biden
[There is a] widening gap between those Americans who use or have access to telecommunications technologies, like computers and the Internet, and those who do not.
Surprisingly, there are those naysayers who suggest that the "digital divide" does not exist, that it is a myth or fabrication of consumer and civil rights advocates. Perhaps it is because the term "digital divide" has been so over-used and, in some instances, mis-used that it causes some to doubt its existence. Perhaps the term has so thoroughly infiltrated our everyday discourse that it causes skeptics to under-estimate its very real and powerful consequences.
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No matter the reason for these naysayers' doubt, the unequivocal answer to their question "is there really a digital divide" is a resounding "YES."
A series of reports issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce not only confirms that the "digital divide" exists; it suggests that, while the number of Americans accessing the Internet has grown rapidly in recent years, the technology gap between poor and minority communities, on one hand, and other Americans, on the other, is actually widening.
Take this seemingly encouraging example: from December 1998 to August 2000, the percentage of African-American households with Internet access more than doubled, from 11.2 percent to 23.5 percent -- an encouraging development, by any measure. But during that same time period, the percentage of total households nationally with Internet access soared to 41.5 percent. And the access rates for White Americans and Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders -- 46.1 percent and 56.8 percent, respectively -- significantly outpaced that national average.
As a consequence, the already substantial gap between African-American Internet usage and national usage grew 3 percentage points. The gap was even greater when comparing African-American usage with that of White Americans or Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. Similarly, during that same 20-month period, the gap between Hispanic households with Internet access and the national average grew 4 percentage points.
The effect: What was once a gap is now swelling into a chasm. Just this morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that, in 1997, ten percent of Americans earning less than $25,000 a year used the Internet, compared with 45 percent of those earning more than $75,000. By 2001, despite increased usage by both groups, the "gap" had grown to 50 percentage points.
Yes, the "digital divide" exists, and that fact should concern us greatly. In today's information age, unequal access to the national information infrastructure affects nearly every part of our lives. Access to these networks increasingly dictates the ease with which we can pursue education, conduct our financial affairs, apply for a job, or participate in the political process. Lack of access will only reinforce and magnify already existing inequalities in these important areas of life. ...
The development of information technology holds great potential to strengthen and invigorate American society. That potential cannot be fully realized, however, unless we pay attention to the hundreds of thousands of individuals, many of whom reside in largely minority and/or low-income communities, who have no, or limited, access to our burgeoning national information infrastructure.
We can, and must, inform decisionmakers about the true value of minority markets receptive to advanced services. We must provide private industry with incentives to deploy in these markets.
And, perhaps most important, we must continue to make public investments in underserved communities. Our failure will only dampen private sector and philanthropic efforts, and, more tragically, handicap a generation of Americans for years to come.
Joseph Biden, a Democrat, is a U.S. Senator from Delaware. The above commentary has been adapted from a statement Sen. Biden delivered on the floor of the Senate, February 27, 2002. To contact him, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
