Efforts to Close the Digital Divide
How Are Cities, Organizations, and Other Groups Helping?
No one doubts that the Internet and digital technology are an essential and growing part of functioning successfully in the world today. Unfortunately, something called the digital divide affects people all across the United States and around the world and keeps them out of current opportunities and overall success. Cities, the federal government, and other organizations present a variety of ways to help close the digital divide and give every group access to the technology required by modern life.
What Is the Digital Divide?
To put it simply, a digital divide defines the differences in access to technology, communication, and information. It generally focuses on access to reliable and high-speed Internet, which facilitates all of those things. The divide exists between people within communities, geographic regions, socioeconomic groups, households, companies, and any other specific designation you can think of. It exists because of old infrastructure, lack of affordability, adoption of tech for social and educational programs, and the skills necessary to use what exists effectively.
Just think about all of the reasons you log onto the Internet on a daily basis. You may pay your bills online, shop at e-commerce stores, order dinner, get help with homework, research helpful topics of all types, get telehealth services, apply for jobs, and more. If you did not have access to all of this, you would be left behind others who do.
What Are People and Groups Doing About It?
Recent efforts by the federal government, especially the American Jobs Plan that promises $65 billion to boost digital infrastructure, are intended to help close the digital divide. It takes more than physical systemic improvements, however, to approach this difficult topic. Yes, the towers, wires, and stations must be in place to allow communication technology and Internet to cover all locations. However, the service still needs to be affordable and usable by the populations there.
A variety of non-profit and other organizations work either locally or nationally to help. Some of these include: corporations and non-profit organizations, as well as regional, national, and other organizations.
· Notebooks For Students and Devices for Students that both provide top brand discounts to kids and teens who need technology for their education
· Everyone On that works with low-income communities to find affordable Internet and computer equipment
· Human IT that refurbishes and hands out equipment to those who need it
· Kajeet which has deployed Wi-Fi providing buses to regions with low access
· Comcast's new Internet Essentials $9.95 service
· Mobile Citizen with free or $10 per month wireless Internet
A variety of geo-specific groups also exist. Nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC, Florida, California, Washington state, and more are currently working to bridge the digital divide for students, businesses, and households.
All of these efforts to close the digital divide have one major goal in common. They want to ensure equity among all groups across the United States when it comes to access and understanding of technology. There is no doubt that people need fast and reliable Internet access to do everything from grade school homework to filling out job applications to shopping to socializing effectively with friends and family. Closing the gap between the haves and the have-nots by boosting infrastructure and access will help underprivileged groups find success.
