Broader Digital Divide

A ccess to the Internet from home is the ideal, but public access sites will continue to be needed from some years to come. Those who have the lowest incomes, low levels of skills and training, and low literacy are least likely to have affordable access from home, and will continue to rely on and benefit from community access sites. Beyond affordable access and specific benefits for individuals, there is also a broader social policy issue that will need to be revisited now that the Internet has undergone several years of development. We need to ask, the integration of computer and Internet technologies into communities and organizations to what ends or objectives? Do we need to modify and update the objectives established several years ago given the significant changes and potential opportunities that have arisen with the maturation of the Internet over the past few years? Do we have the economic and social information resources and supporting institutions in place to achieve a broad set of modified or new objectives? Who should bear what responsibility of setting new development goals and roles to achieve these? Addressing these social policy questions will require a broad comprehensive analysis informed by what people are already doing both in real life and online. Where in these relations do we find obstacles and opportunities, successes and failures, and what role has information technology played in these outcomes?

In a broader social context, enough practice exists now to better assess content value and relevance, and how online communication augments other services, or operates as a complementary channel to other means of access and information exchange, and how online communication meets needs or offers opportunities in innovative ways. At the same time, analysis must be concerned with the issue that the introduction and integration of information technologies does not recreate existing inequalities, or create new ones, and does not downgrade other important skills and activities of people and their relationships. Adopting a considered approach in the introduction and integration of information technologies increases the likelihood for the progressive development of human capital, social capital, and social infrastructure, all of which are underpins of social and economic development. This also means that some balance will also likely be required between online and other means of communication and information exchange.

To achieve strong human capital in society, individuals need to be literate on several levels, including numeracy, prose, interpersonal communications, and have different levels of technical proficiency in order to function in society and the workplace and have the flexibility to continually adapt to changes in work and society. Successful development and participation also rely on a host of other factors, such as health, education, etc., and access to, and the support of, formal and informal civic and other organizations and institutions at the community and other levels.²⁰ The Internet and computers have joined a diverse basket of supportive resources that can be used to facilitate these developments (including ongoing learning), and help maintain participation.

20 Schuller, T., "The Complementary Roles of Human and Social Capital", Isuma, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring, 2001, pp. 18-24.