ABOUT THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: BACKGROUND

The Digital Divide is the term used to denote the gap between the information technology "haves" and "have nots." It refers to the disparities between industrialized and developing countries in the context of use of and access to information and communication technology (ICT) tools as well as the disparities between different socio-economic groupings within societies. Globally, the Digital Divide threatens entire societies and cultures with technological disenfranchisement. This may translate to those societies and cultures being left further and further behind the areas of the world that keep pace with computer technology.

The Divide is not an abstract socio-political concept, but rather is based on objective reality:

• 96% of Internet host computers reside in the highest income nations with only 16% of the world’s population;
• Over 40% of the United States population now uses the Internet, but just 1.6% of Asians and 0.3% of Africans do so;
• There are more Internet hosts in Finland than all of Latin America and the Caribbean; more in New York City than on the entire continent of Africa;
• 87% of all users live in 29 industrialized countries, leaving 13% dispersed throughout the 150 non-industrialized nations;
• It is estimated that 9,000 people use the Internet in Nigeria; over 106 million are on-line in the United States;
• More than 50% of the world’s population has never used a telephone;
• Over 80% of web pages and 90% of documents on the web are in English, although the vast majority of the world does not speak English.