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Growing Gap in the Digital Divide and Digital Equity

Digital Divide and Digital Equity are two terms that have become more relevant today than they ever have been. In recent years technology has increased and advanced a significant amount since COVID. Digital divide has been explained as the division created between different people due to various factors, some of them being physical, financial and educational. In the article written by Pazurek, she explains that the digital divide should be reframed in order to include a continuum rather than just a have or don’t have situation (Pazurek & Feyissa, 2015). This continuum includes different components and includes the fact that even people who have access to the internet may not have the proper knowledge for how to use the technology. After reading this I am noticing that our definition of what a digital divide is needs to be inclusive to include the educational side of technology because even people in our country who have ample access to all the technology don’t know how to use it because they aren't educated for the specific technology.

Digital equity is defined as creating a space that allows people to access the technology. This is also sometimes termed as digital inclusion because its not only making technology accessible but ensuring there is accessible technology for public use and resources for education on how to use the technology but also ensuring we have the digital infrastructure to accommodate the type of advancements we have seen such as 3G connections or fibre optics (Quaintance, 2018). This was a cool perspective because we often forget that along with the advancements in the technology sphere it requires that our infrastructure also improves meaning more towers for signals to reach, more satellites to increase the efficiency of what we are doing. This is something I never considered. I think these terms are related because both enforce the need to keep educating people on technology and ensuring that everyone can develop a greater understanding of how to use technology!

Limited digital technology access, knowledge or skills can impact someone's ability to participate because the world has become so technologically driven that many people who don’t have access to certain technology just simply aren’t able to access information or might even just miss opportunities. For example, since COVID 19 grocery stores have switched on online flyers and delivery programs that operate through an app. A presentation made by Dr.Jan van Dijk from University of Twente and he talks about how the internet and technology usage has increased significantly and is used for everything now (2020). This usage increase adds to the disparity between the generations. For much of the elderly population they don’t have access to technology and even those that do have the access don’t have the resources to know how to properly download apps, create accounts, pick and order groceries. The digital divide in the past has been shown differently but now with the influence of technology into our everyday lives it’s easy to see the gap widen (Radovanovic, 2011).  

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Digital Citizenship and its Importance

What is digital citizenship? Well to me digital citizenship can be defined is the ability to continuously develop our understanding of technology such that it is always used appropriately. This interpretation and I gathered from a definition found from the reading titled nine elements of digital literacy by Ribble, Bailey, and Ross (2004). Basically with the development and advancing of technology our digital citizenship is ever changing to accommodate for our ability to understand these new technologies.  

Digital citizenship can be distinguished from digital literacy because digital literacy is defined to focus more on how to use technology while citizenship includes the ways to use technology appropriately. Digital citizenship and literacy have the similarities because both of these include educating people of how to have general knowledge of using technology to be able to function in today’s society. While the differences can be seen when digital citizenship begins talking about the right and wrong way, or appropriate and inappropriate ways to use technology. In specific one of the articles talks how digital citizenship involves educating people in regards to cyber bullying and hate speech (Ottesen, 2018).

Many people intertwine the use of digital citizenship and digital literacy because they assume that the two are the same. As stated above there are some similarities but they are different and both are important to teach not only youth but everyone who has access to technology in some form. An article by Sunny Dye does a great job explaining the differences between the two and it even mentions that 90% of students use the internet for the purpose of school (2017). Since this is the case it is even more crucial for educators and even parents to teach their children the ethics and proper use of the internet.

I believe that digital citizenship can be supported for adult learners because we are all on our phone and now using technology more than ever it's important to be aware of our actions and the permanence of the internet. The saying goes “once it's out in the web it can never be taken back” and people seem to forget this. Continuing to educate adult learners on our digital actions can help to create a safer place. In an article by Chris Zook, he mentions how empathy and securing digital devices are important components of digital citizenship and I believe these are two of the main parts that educators could focus on (Zook, 2019). These two components are what educators should focus on because empathy is important when considering that no one really knows what another person is going through so you have to be empathetic towards that. I also think that securing digital devices is so important because a lot of us have personal information on our devices and when we leave them unsecured we are more vulnerable to cyber attacks. To avoid that we have to know how to keep our data safe and secure.

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Social Media & Participatory Culture

Participatory Culture Theory talks about the distribution of knowledge amongst individuals. It is defined in such a way that each person's participation and input on a specific topic help to further our understanding and this increases each person's overall knowledge. Participatory culture relates to social media because social media works in the same way, each person can help to add to the posts and increase the input on the specific topic. Collectively we all contribute to each other's knowledge by putting forth our best understanding of each topic.

Personally my own “participation” on social media involves using platforms such as instagram, facebook, twitter, and snapchat. These platforms are pretty much where I get most of my information. In the video Dr. Jenkins talks about how young people get their news from tv shows, comedies and pop culture companies. I would argue that even this stat has changed. The younger generations are typically like me and getting the news from social media rather than journalism or even tv shows now. My main motivation for participating online and engaging with others is just to keep in touch with my friends and family. Social media is such an easy fast way to update a large amount of family and friends and that ease of communication is appealing.

What is unique about social media since COVID-19 is just the amount of information and adaptation that many of us have done in order to remain connected while being kept apart from each other. I wouldn’t say that my participation with social media since COVID 19 has changed much. My screen time has definitely increased and I know I have been more intentional with reaching out to family and friends more often but aside from those I've had no major changes to my media usage. Mainly online I share information to help promote my friends in positive ways whether it's their business or simply just a cool photo of theirs. Also, in one of the articles we read this week they talk about how participatory culture shifts the focus from individual expression to community involvement (Jenking, pg.7) This participatory culture is more relevant now because of COVID-19 and the transition to online learning. The way many of the online courses are created have a lot of group components and group participation and therefore is a big contributor to participatory culture.

One way I have earned some money throughout the lockdowns has been through the use of technology and media. Since door dash was developed I became a dasher and was able to connect with people and deliver them their food throughout the pandemic. This was a great way to earn some money and get involved in the community to help support local businesses. In the video we watched Jenkins states that 65% of teens use media and I believe this number especially since the endemic has increased substantially.

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Blog post #1

Teens and adults have similar experiences with social media.Teens have access to social media from a young age and this accessibility has created a dependency to social media. The Common Sense Media states that from 2012 to 2018 smartphone access has almost doubled. This is important to note because this smartphone usage among teenagers is why we see such a rise in social media. Teens and adult’s relationships with social media are pretty different. Most teens are using snapchat and instagram while adults are using these they are also using facebook at a larger percentage than teens. More than 50% of teens say that if parents knew what actually happened on social media they would be more concerned.

The Pew Research Center also mentions that among american adults facebook and youtube are the most common forms of social media. Although the articles are based on data from 2012-2018 I believe that the younger generations now will have an even larger dependency on social media and technology because of the current situation and the impact that social media has had during the pandemic. The article talks about how over 80% of adults (18-24) are using the platform facebook, 78% use snap chat and the largest platform with 94% usage is youtube. This is not surprising given all the changes youtube has made in recent years to be able to accommodate to the needs of everyone, you can find anything on youtube.

Some negative effects of social media usage is that teens are getting more distracted by social media. They are losing quality in person social interaction because of social media. Teens are getting easily distracted by the notifications on their phones and are choosing to stay inside playing video games or chatting rather than getting outside. One of the other negative effects of the increased usage is that teens have an increase in cyberbullying and 22% of teens feel worse about themselves.

Positive effects are that social media offers a place for teens to feel less lonely. Teens feel like they can connect and have friends online and create deeper bonds with these online friends. Due to the pandemic social media has had a great positive effect in the teens and adult populations. Though these articles are prior to the pandemic, social media has allowed for people to connect in ways that they no longer can due to many factors. Zoom and facetime allow fo conversations among elderly people, sick people, and immunocompromised family and friends.