The Digital Divide Gap is Shortening

It is true that the access to computers and the Internet is limited for some specific groups such as low income families and it is also true that because of this discrepancy, the participation of users who have limited access to such resources interact less with the media available to them. These realities refer to the digital divide and the participation gap. What Kevin Guidry from the Indiana University says in his 2007 article about these two concepts is different from the reality today.

 Improvement Apparent but Disparities Exist

                If one thing can surely be said about the digital divide today, it would be that there is less of a divide than was apparent 5 years ago. According to a study done by the Pew Research Center from 2012, digital differences have been reduced because of “increased internet adoption and the rise of mobile connectivity.” As of now, 88% of Americans own a mobile phone. Of course the ownership of digital gadgets is still a little influenced by age, education and household income, but recently we have seen the gap closing. With regards to age, disparity still exists in that older adults are less inclined to use digital technology as much, but the Pew Research Center study concluded that some digital devices such as tablets and e-book readers “are as popular or even more popular with adults in their thirties and forties than young adults ages 18-29.” Furthermore, with regards to race, we saw that Kevin Guidry said African Americans and Latinos were less likely to own such digital devices. In 2012, however, we see that this gap is closing because now, “both African Americans and English-speaking Latinos are as likely as whites to own any sort of mobile phone.” Yes, the gap isn’t completely bridged, but there has been significant improvement.

Bridging the Gap Can Occur Through Mobile Politics

                The increasing prominence of digital technology is exhibited quite well by the recent marriage between mobile technology and politics. What we see now is the push of political campaigns toward getting their messages out via mobile technology, whether it’s through a text message or posting on a social network site that is mostly accessed by mobile internet. Of all registered voters who own a cell phone, 27% use their phone to “keep up with news related to the election itself or to political issues in general.” These users are signing up to receive text messages from the campaign itself and using texting and social networking to comment on the campaign in general or interact with other voters. Similar to the universal trend, disparities exist in that older voters still use traditional media to get political news and that liberals are a little bit more likely to use their phone to get political news. Despite this, a general move toward transmitting information digitally is evident.

With the Divide Closing, New Questions Arise

                By looking at the specific trends of mobile politics and the general trends of digital device ownership, I think that the future of digital devices such as the mobile phone will be more universal in access and audience. The problem won’t be that there is a divide in ownership, but that there will be a divide in quality. Five years from now, mostly everyone will own a mobile device, but the quality of the device (ex. Whether it’s a smartphone or not) will be dependent on personal factors such as income. Also, as the generation of children that grew up with technology grows up, soon the population will be filled with mostly all tech savvy people. At this point, we can say that in the future, sharing information digitally is becoming a standard that everyone will have access to regardless of the quality of the device.