Factors Affecting Digital Divide

A few determinants of digital divide have been determined.

Poverty & Poor Infrastructure

Poverty is the core factor in the digital divide (Tiene, n.d.).  In a world where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the developing countries certainly are not able to acquire sufficient funding to purchase the telecommunication infrastructure and equipment.  Instead, they are more concerned with health care and the other social infrastructure such as water and electricity.  Subsequently, the underdeveloped telecommunication infrastructure has limited their ICT availability and thus information-deprived. 

Corruption & Bureaucracy

According to a survey carried out by the Global Information Infrastructure Commission on individuals around the world from private sector, it shows that an inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy can impede and deviate away much needed funds for bridging digital divide.  Lack of government regulations and proper surveillance are so discouraging that they can be deterrence to potential funders and investors.  These combined circumstances make the telecommunications environments so restrictive and stagnant that reformation is difficult to be materialized (Tiene, n.d.).

 Educational Exposure & Technical Support

Providing education in ICT is a big hindrance because ICT is expensive and fund-exhausting.  With the infrastructure already in a poor state, surges in electrical lines can damage hardware and or low bandwidth connection limits the Internet access very much.  Usually, school budgets are overall quite restraining and getting funding for instructional technology is challenging.  Thus, they usually purchase used equipment or rely on donated hardware that have low functionality.

In addition, lack of technical support to install the systems and repair the equipment can be problematic and troublesome.  Especially with the deficiency of technical expertise, school teachers are often without guidance and little experience with technology as to how to utilize the existing equipment and integrate into the curriculum.  Therefore, students are not able to receive sufficient technological skills.

 Poor planning

In many cases, the efforts to institute instructional technologies to the developing countries have adversely failed.  Such unsuccessful efforts have put the poor country further indebted with the considerable sunk cost of technology-based projects.  One of the common mistakes usually made is overambitious and too optimistic on the projects.  Some projects which lack detailed findings whether local community can adapt to their approach usually only raise even more problems.  Teachers were indisposed to those approaches and the students soon lost interest.  Without the support of the key participants, these efforts eventually became obsolete (Tiene, n.d.).

Other factors 

Income effect

Household or individual income has been identified as an important determinant of the presence of computers and the internet penetration in homes.  Income distribution is particularly vital in the diffusion of new technology; with higher income groups acquire ICTs earlier (OECD, 2001).

Rurality

As urban centres are progressively building high-speed broadband networks, many rural and remote areas are neglected because the cost and difficulty associated with wiring the rural locations are often expensive and prohibitive. 

Illiteracy

Able to access to technology and content are insufficient. With ability to access to internet, the individual need to know minimally

                  1)How to apply the technology

                  2)How to search and retrieve relevant information via the Web

                  3)Process the information in order to answer their information problem

In short, individuals should not only have the accessibility to the Internet, but the knowledge to utilize the Internet (Bertot, 2003).  For example, literacy problem in Bangladesh has brought crisis of skilled computer user. They do not have the adequate knowledge to employ the information in the net which is designed in advance technology.  In addition, the less educated community are not very computer friendly (Akbar, n.d.).

Language barriers & lack of local cultural diversity contents

Most of the websites available are dominated by English while websites with local languages are scarce.  Some people especially those who's English is not their native language may feel discouraged and unable to participate fully using the English language (Akbar, n.d.). Moreover, low availability of local and social issues and web contents that are sufficiently enriched with cultural diversity also contributed to the digital divide. Local users are deprived from accessing local information and services as required.

https://wiki.nus.edu.sg/display/IS1103TP/Factors+behind+Global+Digital+Divide