Interview: 5 thoughts about the digital divide

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By Jon Surmacz

(IDG) -- According to Nielsen//NetRatings, there are 162.5 million Internet users in the United States. Yet there are millions more in poor rural and urban areas that don't have affordable Internet access, thereby preventing them from economic and educational opportunities. This problem is typically referred to as the digital divide.

We spoke with Ken Jarboe, president of the Athena Alliance, a think tank concentrating on the social implications of the Internet and the information economy, to find out why businesses should be aware of the divide and what they should do about it.

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Darwinmag.com: How do you define the digital divide?

Jarboe: I tend not to use the term. The narrowness of the definition having to do with access to the Internet and to PCs doesn't speak to the underlying issues. If you view the divide as a consumer, commercial electronics thing, then the people with the money will have the latest gadgets and the people who don't have them will have to make do with other things. To me the whole focus on the technology misses the overall point of inclusion. When I think of the digital divide, I think of this broader issue of people who can utilize and participate in all the things that are going on in the information revolution and those who are locked out.

Adam Thierer, director of telecommunication studies at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, says that the severity of the digital divide is overstated. Do you agree?

If you view the digital divide as nothing more than an issue of access to consumer electronics, then the divide is overstated. But, if you view information/knowledge and information technology as key production tools of the new information age, then the divide is as serious as the one between subsistence farmers -- the have-nots of the industrial age -- and modern factory workers -- the haves.

What are the root causes of the digital divide?

There are many. They range from design by techies for techies, which caused people with disabilities to almost be shut out of the information revolution by creating Web technologies they could not use, to our misconception that "knowledge workers" -- that group that is supposed to the drivers of the information age -- are only highly educated elites. In fact, local and tacit knowledge and the skills and information of everyday people are just as important as Java programmers and Bill Gates.

The causes are also socioeconomic in nature. The causation runs from technology utilization to economic outcomes and back to technology utilization. Telecommunications and information technologies are not just consumer devices. They are production tools. Simply put: by utilizing the technology, the haves are able to get more; the have-nots are shut out even more. Lack of access leads to a lack of wealth and income, which was the reason for the lack of access.

Why should American businesses be concerned about the extent of the digital divide in the United States and throughout the world?

Why should business care? Because they are in business and this is the future of their business. Again, it is not about selling a few books over the Internet; it is about changing the nature of business. Just like the transcontinental railroad changed things, the IT revolution changes things. Business leaders in 1860 understood the opportunities associated with opening the West and connecting the east and west coasts. Business leaders of today should understand the opportunities associated with including everyone in the information age.

In addition, the dynamics of our networked economy demand that we eliminate the divide. Metcalfe's Law states that the value of a network increases exponentially in relation to the number of users. The same is true for markets and economic activity. By leaving some behind, we impoverish not only those individuals; we also impoverish ourselves.

What is being done to address this problem? And is business part of the problem or part of the solution here?

We need to do a lot of different things: increase access, make the technology more user-friendly, extend broadband to where the users are -- rather than lay more fiber for the same narrow core of business users, which is what we have been doing and why we have a so-called fiber glut -- and step up training efforts.

We especially need to expand the economic and business development aspects of the information revolution. It is about the use and creation of information, not about the dotcoms. Support of entrepreneurship, especially locally-based programs to develop social capital and to incubate and mentor new entrepreneurs, are critical. We need to expand our efforts to help existing businesses better utilize information and information technology. This new phase of the information revolution will be marked by the transformation of small and medium size businesses.

We must also step back from our techno-centric focus and look at the real driver of the information age: information and knowledge. IT is a tool. We need to continue to develop new and better tools -- this innovation cycle still has a long way to run. But economic development in the information age is about finding, creating, developing and utilizing sources of knowledge and information. Those sources range from a university PhD who had developed a new algorithm for coding data to a factory worker who figured out a way to reduce defects to a community group who has pulled together a local database of neighbors available for day-care help.