The Digital Divide: Who is in and who is out?
A Nation Online: Entering the Broadband Age.
US Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
“A Nation Online: Entering the Broadband Age is the sixth report released by the U.S. Department of Commerce examining the use of computers, the Internet, and other information technology tools by the American people. Based on the U.S. Census BureauÕs Current Population Survey of 57,000 households containing 134,000 persons, this report provides broad-based and statistically reliable information on the ways that information technologies in general, and broadband more specifically, are transforming the way we live, work, and learn.”
Following the pattern of the last few reports, this one paints a rosy picture of net usage without a single mention of ‘the digital divide.’ But the data the report uses paint a starkly different picture.
Appendix 2 is the only place in the report where
non-internet use is documented. Here you find the reality: vast segments of the population are not using the net and have no access to it:
| African-American | 54.4% |
| Hispanic | 62.8% |
| Not employed | 57.2% |
| Family Income Less than $15,000 | 68.8% |
| Family Income $15,000 - $24,999 | 62.0% |
| unemployed | 57.2% |
| Educational Attainment Less Than High School | 84.5% |
| Educational Attainment High School Diploma / GED | 55.5% |
The report further masks the digital divide by lumping access to the net at work with access at home — thus inflating the numbers of people who have access to the net for personal use. When one looks at kind of access at home, one sees that only about 22% of homes have broadband access; the rest have slow dialup lines. The report does not bother to provide the demographic break down of who has broadband and who does not, but you can run the numbers yourself
using the actual raw data. (See link to CPS below.)
Related information:
- US netizens: white, wealthy and full of it - shock!
By Andrew Orlowski. The Register,
1st December 2004. - data and documentation from the CPS Computer ownership supplement