Factors Affecting Digital Divide

Economic factors, Geographical factors, Technophobia, and Social factors are the underscored factors that affect the digital divide.

Information-rich jobs emerge as crucial in this new setting, not just service jobs with low information content. One image of service sector jobs conjures up a picture of millions of people, working in fast-food restaurants, or clerks stuffing papers into file cabinets. That is an old and increasingly inaccurate image of the service sector, one that would have been of greater use in the 1950s than it is today.

Now we have a situation where the amount of knowledge, education, skill, and experience needed by an individual to generate economic value is sharply rising. It is why Bill Gates -a knowledge worker- is worth billions of dollars. It is why companies like IBM, EDS, Ernest & Young, Microsoft, Nokia, MTN, Airtel, Globacom, Dangote, Nine Mobile, and others, employ hundreds of thousands of college-educated consultants, generating billions of dollars in revenue.

Economists measure the change, primarily by shifts in the structure of employment, in changes in career and job categories, and by tracking the increased requirements for formal education.

• Economic factors involve the high cost of setting up infrastructure and Internet access, including maintenance costs and power generation.

• Geographical factors affect those living in the suburbs and rural areas, and those who do not have basic infrastructure such as electricity.

• Technophobia affects those who fear or dislike the use of technology such as ATMs, computers, and phones, or anything that involves modern or advanced technology. Even filling out forms online is extremely difficult for them.

• Social factors reflect the distance already created, between those with access to technologies, and those without access to technologies. Education is a potential weapon to tackle the challenges posed by social factors.