Digital Divide in the time of COVID-19

Digital Divide is the phenomenon that refers to the gap between those who can take advantage of the digital era versus those who are not able to benefit from it. To rephrase it in simple terms, it is the inequality in access to the internet. As per various studies, the average internet penetration across the globe is around 53%. Further, the pandemic has exposed the same and revealed how deep this gap is and will further deepen if necessary socio-economic measures are not taken in time.

How has COVID deepened and exposed the same

The pandemic has school doors shut for the second time in less than a year. Educators and learners are better prepared than last year when schools across the world are disarranged to adopt online learning.

The primary cause of the digital divide is access to internet. Though access is the major contributing factor, other factors like cost of technology, affordability, per capita income, and low penetration are some top contributors.

The problem is more notable for those mixed up with managed moves and exclusions.

People experiencing ‘digital divide’ are exposed to the forces that have brought us the attainment, achievement, arbitrary circumstances, and the differentials in the frequency of school exclusions. Fact being — your life chances are related to the economic background you belong to. While we have acknowledged this fact as an unfortunate reality of the current landscape, one that has attracted much interest and funding, we need to be proactive in our approach and response and not allow the digital divide to become another unfortunate part of society.

How do we bridge Digital Divide

The point of contention before us is What we can do to bridge the gap.Some solutions can be brought into place in the long term to address this gap.

Empowering users

To experience the unrealized and powerful impact of the internet on the world, we must take advantage of its current capacities. Most internet users restricted understanding of some of its use cases. An issue that widens the digital divide is ‘participation inequality,’ where users lack the skill set to use the same.

Data generated by user activity is used in decision-making; the data collected is inadequate for proper decision-making, leading to poor decisions that may lead to enormous consequences and flawed data analysis. To avoid this, the user needs to be educated on the benefits and value of utilizing the internet and the various resources to achieve economic and social growth. Furthermore, the user should be encouraged to share opinions, thoughts, and other relevant user data online to aid the government and other concerned organizations.

Improving the relevance and quality of online content

The major constraint to internet penetration in developing countries is relevance and quality of content. In most cases, people cannot find content, online services, or web and mobile applications in their primary language. Moreover, most rural areas lack the preliminary training to understand online content. To spur internet adoption in such places, local content and applications need to be developed in local languages that the local populace can understand.

Public Private Partnership to increase reachability

Taking an example of India, which has the cheapest rate for the Internet, the number of smart devices to access the internet in an average household is less.A multitude of initiatives have been taken by the Government under the Digital India Initiative, however if the model of Public Private Partnership is adopted , campaigns and pilots projects can be run to provide affordable devices at a discounted rate, the reachability can increase over a period of time.

COVID-19 has not only exposed the gap which existed since years, but also helped us with some reality check that if the problem is not addressed, it will lead to an entire generation of students entering the workforce who have missed the peer to peer classroom interaction and missed out on the experience of school and were not able to cash in opportunities due to access inequality

Do let us know in comments what are your thoughts on Digital Divide