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Problems and Causes
Note: All figures presented for minimum wages and computer prices are at the time of publishing (April, 2008) and may not represent current figures.
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So what is the problem with the digital divide? The digital divide separates “haves” and “have-nots” in a way unlike we’ve seen previously worldwide. This happens because the digital divide separates groups in two main ways; funding and experience.
The first way, funding and money, has been around in almost every problem that separates society members in one way or another. Computers and access to technology are expensive, meaning that without extra money they’re not as accessible as they are to people with higher incomes.
We will do some quick math to illustrate this point. Starting at the base level, an eMachines personal computer can be purchased off of NewEgg.com for $279.00. This computer is the definition of basic. It has a 2.4 GHz processor (three generations old), 1GB of DDR2 667 RAM (more than three generations old), a 160GB hard drive, and shared video. It does not include a monitor, which at the base level will cost about $139.99 for a 16” 8ms LCD. Neither of these items have shipping included, which will push the price up another $35.03. All this is before taxes, which for demonstrative purposes we’ll leave out. This brings our current grand total up to $454.02.
While some of that PC technology might be slightly outdated, for an entry level system it could be worse, especially for someone that’s just using this machine to break into new technologies. An employee working a minimum wage job in the state of Washington (which ranks highest in the nation for minimum wages), they will be earning $8.07 an hour. This translates into 57 hours of work to purchase this PC and have it shipped to your home, which is again, before any taxes. That means the barrier for entry in the monetary sense is quite large for someone that has a low paying job. For a comparison, the federal minimum wage is currently $5.85, which would take an employee earning that per hour 78 hours before taxes to earn the same computer.
In order to experience anything that computer technology has to offer in the home, a Washington minimum wage employee would need to work full time for a week and a half, and a federal minimum wage employee for nearly two full weeks. To someone without bills straight out of high school this may not be a horrible thing. If room and board are somehow covered, some sacrifices must be made but it would be feasible within a month. However when four full time weeks of work a month totals $1291.20 in Washington, and rent requires $600 or more of that, plus bills, plus food, it’s easy to see how large this barrier to entry in the digital divide becomes. This also doesn’t include the fact that there will be a monthly charge for internet services, phone bills, and so on in order to achieve full use out of the new computer.
The second major barrier to catching up with technology is experience. Many people that now have money or direct access to computers are still left behind due to lack of training or no desire to learn. As with every new technology, some people that were able to live their lives just fine before will be slow to adopt, if at all, technologies they deem unnecessary.
While age is generally a large factor in this, there are other problems that create this second barrier to entry. If technology wasn’t readily available in schools while a consumer was growing up, their personal experiences with computers and peripherals will be rather limited. This can make jumping into something like personal computing a very daunting task. While studies are currently unclear about the magnitude for this barrier of the digital divide, it is both noted and a highly studied topic. Unlike previous barriers to entry in other US markets such as real estate, schooling, cars, and so on, experience and willingness to learn an entirely new subject and system for conducting day to day operations is very relevant to the digital divide.
A third problem that is not as frequently discussed but is still an issue was covered this semester in our AM ST 475 Digital Diversity class. The main point of the issue raised was that if you tell someone they cannot do something or have access to something else, in many cases the statement will become true out of self prophecy. For example, if you told a lower class black female with a non standard family unit and poorly funded education that she cannot go to college from the time she is in junior high school, she probably will not have much motivation to pursue college if it is going to be absurdly more challenging than for a white male of middle to upper class background, when both his parents attended college as well. When you follow these trends down passed K-12 education and the girl finds out she is on one side of the “divide” and the male is on the other, motivation can become an issue. While it is not a true divide, the terminology used to describe it creates the feeling of animosity for those on either side. Both feel as if they’ve done nothing personally wrong, therefore they don’t have to change anything to change the situation. An article we discussed by Barbra Monroe actually makes mention of this when she states that “the metaphor of a great chasm – a divide – polarizes the issue as a matter of simply having, or not having,” (Monroe) access to technologies and benefits provided by them.
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