Digital Divide vs.
Participation Gap
Kevin Guidry expresses his thoughts pertaining to the
unequal factors technology causes and what effects the diverse population of
the United States encounters in his article "Digital Divide or Participation Gap? Will Mobile Affect it?". He explores two different theories, a “digital
divide” and a “participation gap.” The “digital divide” states that there are
major differences between those who have computers and technological devices at
home opposed to those who do not. The “participation gap” goes even further by
looking into the particular ways people view and use certain aspects of
technology. I believe that the “participation gap” is the proper explanation for
what the United States is currently experiencing throughout this technological
age because even if a person does not have a computer at home, it is now
extremely easy to access the Internet using other methods at many different
places. Here is a chart that has an overview of Internet and cell phone use
from 2010, categorized by ethnicity:
Whites have the highest percentage in each category, and
Hispanics’ percentages trail closely behind Blacks. The main explanation for
these results could be that Whites typically have higher incomes than
minorities in America, which means that more Whites can purchase technological
devices. Each ethnicity proves that it is more common for people to have cell
phones than to have computers at home, but more than half of the citizens under
each category do find a way to use the Internet.
Cell Phones are
Playing Larger Roles in Technological Differences Between American Citizens
Guidry’s article was released in 2007 and since then, cell
phones have increasingly become an essential component of technology. According
to a study done by Pew Research Center this past August, “88 percent of
American adults have cell phones.” A large amount of these adults are fortunate
enough to have smartphones, which provides them with access to the Internet.
For those who don’t have computers in their homes, smartphones give them the
opportunity to attain access to the Internet at any moment they find necessary.
Unfortunately, cell phones also provide users with many problems that they have
to deal with on a regular basis. The main problems include dropped calls,
unwanted sales or marketing calls, unwanted spam or text messages, and slow
download speeds. The occurrence of these issues are usually not often or
nonexistent, but some cell phone users have to deal with these burdens multiple
times a week or even worse, several times a day. Surprisingly, smartphone users
encounter mobile phone problems more often than those who have ordinary cell
phones. Among cell phone problems, a larger number of Blacks and Hispanics
experience these problems when compared to Whites. The “participation gap”
seems to mainly be divided by ethnicities because they tend to share similar characteristics
involving how often and in what specific ways they access the Internet.
The Future Will
Continue To Be Affected By a Participation Gap
Hopefully, Americans will eventually be able to solve all of
the varying components involving citizens’ connections to technology and their
understanding of it. I believe that the “participation gap” will become
narrower as time goes on, but I do not believe that it will be completely
resolved in the next three to five years. A few of the results from the Pew
Research Center’s study will still prove to be true, while some of the results
will alter to better our society. Ethnicities will still provide divisions
between factors of cell phone usage, but the amount of people within each
ethnicity who have cell phones will continue to increase along with the number of
people who own smartphones. Unless
entirely new problems arise, mobile cell phone problems will diminish largely
in the future because cell phone companies will develop different methods in
order to solve these dilemmas.
