Digital Divide or Digital Opportunity

Yeah. It is time for some critical things. Technology as a panacea for lifelong learning, economic competitiveness, and social exclusion? Some researchers do not think so. Most politicians and the public regard technology as a promise for common good, while critics question popular optimism and offer evidence of “digital divide.”  Basically, digital divide is defined as “a growing disparity between those individuals and communities that have and those that do not have easy access to new information technologies” (p. 261). Income is a highly significant factor determining individual’s access to IT, and a few studies have demonstrated widening inequalities in access to technology. Therefore, the same groups of people (e.g., the lower-class, women, or old residents) who have been excluded from educational opportunities are now also being blocked outside the promise land of technology.

From this perspective, the technological agenda is basically an economic agenda.  Expecting technology to solve everything ignores the grip of social institutions on people’s lives. When investigating the issue of technology use, be cautious not merely to divide subjects into users or non-users, but group them according to their level of access to technology. In addition, the quality and circumstantial nature of IT access as well as how technology is being used are worthy of further inquiry.

Society is too complicated for technology being a magic bullet to solve everything. Most social problems result from problematic social structure, and the elimination of them should start from structural change. We have tried to reform our school system in hopes of curing social illness but to no avail; now putting our hope again in technology to be the superman to save our society is anti-historical at all.