Digital Divide Explorer

The digital divide is the gap between people who have good access to the internet and digital technology, and the skills to use it, and people who don't. It exists between countries (the global divide) and within them: between town and country, rich and poor, young and old, and people with and without disabilities.

How to use it

• Explore the data. Income groups: internet use since 2005 in low-, lower-middle-, upper-middle- and high-income countries; drag the year and pick a group to see 100 people. Countries: New Zealand beside its Pacific neighbours and other countries. Groups: town and country, men and women, young and old.
• Causes & solutions: why people are offline, what it costs them, and what governments, companies and communities do about it, with New Zealand examples.
• Challenges: questions on the data and the ideas. Sources lists where every figure comes from.

Key ideas

• Causes: cost (devices, data plans, broadband), infrastructure (no fibre or mobile coverage, unreliable electricity), skills and confidence (digital literacy), age, disability (inaccessible websites, costly assistive technology), language and relevant content, and trust and safety.
• Effects: people offline miss out on education (homework, online learning), jobs and job applications, cheaper online prices, banking, health and government services that are moving online, and keeping in touch, so the divide can widen other inequalities.
• Solutions: building infrastructure (fibre, mobile towers, satellite), subsidised devices and connections, free access in libraries and community centres, digital skills training, accessible design, and content in people's own languages.
• Having a mobile phone isn't the same as being online: in low-income countries there are far more mobile subscriptions than internet users, because data, smartphones and skills cost more than a basic phone.

Common exam mistakes: describing the divide only between countries (it exists within every country too); giving causes without effects, or effects without solutions; vague answers like "poor people can't afford it" without saying what they can't afford and what they miss out on; and inventing figures. Quote data only with its source and year.

Objective: Cambridge International AS & A Level Information Technology (9626), AS Level IT in society: the digital divide, its causes, its effects on individuals and society, and how it can be reduced.