Recent studies have enhanced our understanding of digital divides by investigating outcomes of Internet use. We extend this research to analyse positive and negative outcomes of Internet use in the ...United Kingdom. We apply structural equation modelling to data from a large Internet survey to compare the social structuration of Internet benefits with harms. We find that highly educated users benefit most from using the web. Elderly individuals benefit more than younger ones. Next to demographic characteristics, technology attitudes are the strongest predictors of online benefits. The harms from using the Internet are structured differently, with educated users and those with high levels of privacy concerns being most susceptible to harm. This runs counter to intuitions based on prior digital divide research, where those at the margins should be most at risk. While previous research on digital inequality has only looked at benefits, the inclusion of harms draws a more differentiated picture.
Digital well-being concerns individuals’ subjective well-being in a social environment where digital media are omnipresent. A general framework is developed to integrate empirical research toward a ...cumulative science of the impacts of digital media use on well-being. It describes the nature of and connections between three pivotal constructs: digital practices, harms/benefits, and well-being. Individual’s digital practices arise within and shape socio-technical structural conditions, and lead to often concomitant harms and benefits. These pathways are theoretically plausible causal chains that lead from a specific manifestation of digital practice to an individual well-being-related outcome with some regularity. Future digital well-being studies should prioritize descriptive validity and formal theory development.
In a representative survey of the Dutch population we found that people with low levels of education and disabled people are using the Internet for more hours a day in their spare time than higher ...educated and employed populations. To explain this finding, we investigated what these people are doing online. The first contribution is a theoretically validated cluster of Internet usage types: information, news, personal development, social interaction, leisure, commercial transaction and gaming. The second contribution is that, based on this classification, we were able to identify a number of usage differences, including those demonstrated by people with different gender, age, education and Internet experience, that are often observed in digital divide literature. The general conclusion is that when the Internet matures, it will increasingly reflect known social, economic and cultural relationships of the offline world, including inequalities.
The COVID-19 pandemic has excluded older adults from a society based on physical social contact. Vulnerable populations like older adults also tend to be excluded from digital services because they ...opt not to use the internet, lack necessary devices and network connectivity, or inexperience using the technology. Older adults who are frail and are not online, many of whom are in long-term care facilities, struggle with the double burden of social and digital exclusion. This paper discusses the potential outcomes of this exclusion and provides recommendations for rectifying the situation, with a particular focus on older adults in long-term care facilities.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, providing digital texts as learning material had become a common practice in academia. But little is known about who profits from and who loses out when moving from ...print to digital reading in higher education. In this study, we connect digital reading to digital divides, and draw on a unique data set of university students digital reading practices obtained by a quantitative survey during the lockdown semester in three European countries. Based on the statistical results for digital reading access, attitudes, motivation, skills, behavior, and support, we argue that varying digital reading experiences of students are linked to inequalities in higher education opportunities. In conclusion, our results contrast current digital policies of merely improving access to digital texts in academia to democratize higher education.
The article examines the problems of digital inequality in the financial sphere at three levels. The purpose of the study is to characterize and assess (quantitatively or qualitatively) the digital ...inequality of the Russian population in the financial sphere (at each of the three levels). The achievement of the research goal is ensured by using the index method, methods of graphical analysis, as well as comparative analysis of empirical data. The result of the work is the developed index of the first-level digital inequality in the financial sphere, which allows to give an aggregate assessment. The calculated values of the index confirm the conclusions about the steady decline in the Russian economy of the first-level digital inequality in the financial sphere. As for the second-level digital inequality, the following results were obtained: In 2021, a significant part of the Russian population possessed such basic skills as sending files via e-mail and messengers, working with a text editor and copying or moving files; the share of the population possessing advanced skills increased, while the availability of basic and standard digital skills remained virtually unchanged; the level of digital literacy does not affect the population’s activity in ordering financial services online. A list of digital financial skills has been formulated, which can be assessed in further analysis of the second-level digital inequality. The theoretical description of the third-level digital inequality led us to conclude that to better understand this level, an expanded analysis is required, as well as progress in overcoming the digital gaps of the first and second levels.
In times of physical distancing, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, people are likely to turn to digital communication to replace in-person interactions. Yet, persisting digital inequality ...suggests that not everyone will be equally able or disposed to increasing digital communication during a public health crisis. Using survey data from a national sample of U.S. participants (N = 2,925) that we collected during the early months of the pandemic, we analyzed how sociodemographics, living arrangements, and Internet experiences and skills relate to increases and decreases in various digital communication methods. We find that people privileged in their socioeconomic status, their Internet skills and online experiences are more likely to increase and less likely to decrease digital communication during the pandemic. The findings illustrate how digital inequalities can put already disadvantaged groups at greater risk of diminished social contact during a public health crisis. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings for digital inequality research, the practical implications for inclusive crisis responses, and directions for future research.
•Digital inequality disadvantages some populations in communicating with family and friends during COVID-19.•Those with greater socioeconomic and digital privilege more likely increase and less likely decrease digital communication.•Disparities in digital communication emerge around sociodemographics, and Internet skills and experiences.•Crisis responses should consider those vulnerable to digital exclusion and implement appropriate mitigation strategies.
Public policies across the world are tackling Internet access inequality through mobile connections, which has led to an increase in mobile-only use. However, digital skills remain as a stumbling ...block to achieve digital inclusion. Using a two-wave panel survey on a representative sample conducted in Chile between 2018 and 2020, this study investigates how different mode of access (i.e. mobile-only vs mobile and computer) affects digital abilities over time. Results show significant differences in skills by mode of access. People who became hybrid users (mobile and computer) by wave 2 significantly gained skills while those who were hybrid and became mobile-only by wave 2 significantly lost abilities. People who did not change their type of access did not change their level of digital skills, despite the past of time and gained experience using the Internet. These conclusions show how mode of access may have a key effect on people’s digital inclusion.
Algorithms are an increasingly important element of internet infrastructure in that they are used to make decisions about everything from mundane music recommendations through to more profound and ...oftentimes life changing ones such as policing, health care or social benefits. Given algorithmic systems' impact and sometimes harm on people's everyday life, information access and agency, awareness of algorithms has the potential to be a critical issue. We, therefore, ask whether having awareness of algorithms or not corresponds to a new reinforced digital divide. This study examines levels of awareness and attitudes toward algorithms across the population of the highly digitized country of Norway. Our exploratory research finds clear demographic differences regarding levels of algorithms awareness. Furthermore, attitudes to algorithm driven recommendations (e.g., YouTube and Spotify), advertisements and content (e.g., personalized news feeds in social media and online newspaper) are associated with both the level of algorithm awareness and demographic variables. A cluster analysis facilitates an algorithm awareness typology of six groups: the unaware, the uncertain, the affirmative, the neutral, the sceptic and the critical.
Internet use is an integrated part of everyday life, especially among young people. However, knowledge of this for young people with disabilities is scarce. This study investigates digital ...participation of adolescents with intellectual disabilities by comparing aspects of Internet use among adolescents with and without intellectual disabilities. Cross-sectional comparative design was used and a national survey from the Swedish Media Council was cognitively adapted for adolescents with intellectual disabilities aged 13–20 years. The results reveal that a significantly lower proportion of the 114 participating adolescents with intellectual disabilities had access to Internet-enabled devices and performed Internet activities, except for playing games, than the reference group (n = 1161). The greatest difference was found in searching for information. Analyses indicate that adolescents with intellectual disabilities are following a similar pattern of Internet use as the reference group, but a digital lag is prevalent, and a more cognitively accessible web could be beneficial.
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