The Digital Divide and What It Means for College Students

One of the reasons I like the video above is that it illustrates how deeply technology, especially digital, is embedded in our lives today. The cheery first part “narrates” its message through a number of familiar devices and programs just before it pivots to reveal disturbing statistics about the digital divide.

The digital divide is a real thing. Our class textbook states that the split occurs between those who own computers and have access to the Internet, and those who don’t. The book goes on to cite a Pew report that reveals, among other things, the percentages of certain demographics with Internet access. If 62% of Americans who earn less than $30,000 a year use the Internet, this means that 38% do not. Compare that 62% to the 78% of all adult  Americans who go online (146). If the bulk of information is being spread online, then too many people are not being informed. Reading those statistics, I was a little surprised, but I should not have been.  

The truth is that I witness this divide all the time at my work as a community college teacher. Doing my job nowadays requires that I implement technology in my teaching. I have to push my students toward some degree of digital literacy, so I turn toward current technology whenever I can. For example, I keep all of my course documents and information on Blackboard, and my students print their own syllabi and handouts. In addition, I have them submit their homework and essays electronically, which is how I grade and return the work to them. In addition, I use Blackboard to post tutorials and links to websites, and embed YouTube videos for supplemental information.

Perhaps those statistics to me were not so much a surprise as a revelation . Community college is a special place to teach, because the student population is so diverse. It is not an exaggeration to say that individuals from every single walk of life gather at the community college; this includes students affected by the digital divide. In fact, I have had students represented in every group listed on page 146 of the textbook.  Here I am, teaching with technology, and there are the students, who have none at home. I tell them that they can use computers and the internet at their school or public library.

By providing free computer and internet access, libraries help these students bridge the divide. In the TED Talks presentation posted below, BiblioBoard founder and CEO Andrew Roskill draws a parallel between income inequality and the inequality of access to information, as he praises the importance of libraries before he proceeds to explain what they are doing wrong. The important point here is that libraries really are the “technology lifeline” for so many (147).

Still, libraries have to close every night, and some close for holidays. Many of my students, who  rely on libraries for their digital access, also work full time, at low paying jobs they can’t afford to quit. Often, their study time does not match library hours of operation.  By contrast, people on the “have” side of the digital divide have the luxury of using their technology at any time, and writing in their pajamas, as I’m doing now. Therefore, using technology, when you don’t have access to it at home, requires more planning, more time devoted to each assignment. So while the library really does help level the field, the digital divide continues to add pressure on the lives of those on the “have not” side.

So I am ending this post with many questions. What more can or should a library do? Can an academic library do things a public library can’t do and vice versa when it comes to closing the digital divide? And if the library gets to the point where it can go no further, who needs to step in and close the gap? Laptop initiatives can be a step in the right direction for computer access, but what about internet access? Has the time finally come to start talking about universal public wi-fi?