Digital Divides

With the world at their fingertips, people who have access to the Internet enjoy a wealth of advantages over people who do not. This partitioning of people into information-haves and information-have-nots has been termed the digital divide. Access to the Internet enables people to find information quickly and efficiently.

Access to the Internet holds benefits for everyday life. A traveler who wants to book airline reservation can save money by booking through a lowest-fare service like that of travelocity.com. A reader looking for an out-of-print book can often find it through bibliofind.com. A person wanting to find all of the Bible verses that mention a particular word or words can quickly do so using the Bible Gateway at gospelcom.net. The Internet thus provides a wide variety of services, both general and specialized.

In today's world of information, access to the resources of the Internet represents power. For example:

• The ability to use the Internet to find information faster than another person represents power to determine how you will spend the time you saved.
• The ability to use the Internet to find better information than another person represents power to use that information to your advantage (e.g., by writing a better paper, by getting into a better college or university, by getting a better job, by making better investments, etc.).
• The ability to use the Internet to purchase services at lower costs than another person represents power to use the saved money for other things.
• The ability to use the Internet to find items that another person cannot represents power to make use of those items.

Because people with access to information have more power than those who do not, access to information has become an issue of social justice. Put differently, access to the Internet is a two-edged sword, empowering those who have access and placing at a significant disadvantage those who do not have access.

In today's information age, such access represents power.

The digital divide separates those who have such access and those who do not.

This chapter was written by Jeff Nyhoff and Joel Adams. Copy editing by Nancy Zylstra
©2005 Calvin University (formerly Calvin College), All Rights Reserved

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