The Digital Divide Is a Human Rights Issue: Advancing Social Inclusion Through Social Work Advocacy

by Cynthia K. Sanders and by Edward Scanlon 12/02/2021

Race and Ethnicity

With the degree to which Internet access and adoption is paramount to social mobility, racial disparities stand to reproduce and perhaps exacerbate broader, racialized patterns. Blacks and Latinos are equally likely to report having Internet access, but both groups are less likely to report having Internet access than Whites. While access to the Internet has increased for all racial groups, access disparities for Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans persist compared with Whites (Campos-Castillo 2015; FCC 2020).

Based on census data in 2015, the percentage of households with no broadband or computer disproportionately impact Blacks and Hispanics at rates of 36.4 and 30.3%, respectively, compared with only 21.2% of White households who have neither broadband or a computer (US Census 2017). Families headed by Hispanic immigrants are the least connected among low and moderate income families (Rideout and Katz 2016). Households with an Asian head of household were the most likely to own or use a laptop or desktop, to own or use a smartphone, to own or use a tablet, and to have a broadband Internet subscription. On the other hand, Black heads of household were the least likely to own or use a desktop or laptop or have a broadband subscription (Ryan 2018).

Approximately one in five adults, especially young adults, in the USA are smartphone-only Internet users. These smartphone-only users are more likely to be Black or Hispanic (Pew Research 2019). This is congruent with smartphone-only use among low-income households since we know that Black and Hispanic persons are disproportionately poor (Macartney et al. 2013). This could suggest that some people are increasingly comfortable using their phones rather than a computer. However, it is also because cell-only Internet users are younger heads of household of color with low incomes and less education who may resort to choosing between a phone or a computer and are thus forced to forgo the advantages and speed of conducting Internet business on an in home computer (Pew Research 2019; Duggan and Smith 2013).

Education

People with lower levels of education are more likely to find themselves within the digital divide. In 2015, for example, the digital divide was greatest between rural and urban users without a high school diploma. Only 52% of those who lack a high school diploma and live in a rural area reported using the Internet, compared with 59% of those who live in urban households (Carlson and Goss 2016).

Variations in public school funding are reproduced in terms of quality of Internet access within their classrooms, and the digital divide in public schools is also racialized with White students more likely than students of color to use the Internet in the classroom or school library (Warf 2012). And, while many students can utilize broadband capabilities within school facilities, many students will not be able to tap their device’s full potential at home. Additionally, a lack of access and in-home equipment can have a negative impact on school enrollment for youth (Tomer et al. 2017; Fairlie 2005).

For students who cannot get online at home, either because they lack access or because their families are socioeconomically disadvantaged and they cannot afford monthly charges to stay connected, learning starts and stops at the classroom door. According to Karl Vick (2017), policymakers trade stories of children completing assignments by using Wi-Fi outside of closed libraries or camping out in fast food restaurants. Children may try to complete homework on their phones but run out of data before they can complete their work. In some areas, it can be even more difficult if communities are relying on satellite dish technology, which is slower and more expensive.

Children who lack access to digital resources miss out on other enhancements as well, with disadvantaged students lacking or holding inferior technological resources at home compared with more privileged students (Ritzhaupt et al. 2013). For example, technology can enhance learning in various positive ways such as through e-books and animation. In a similar vein, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (2015) indicates that the effective use of technology can increase interest and proficiency in mathematics. Unfortunately, technology is not distributed evenly in schools. Teachers in low-income districts tend to incorporate digital resources in a less than optimal manner compared with those in wealthier areas (Rienhart et al. 2011).

This information paints a picture of some of the challenges faced in education prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 forced most schools to rapidly shifted entire curricula to online platforms. A recent New York Times editorial (2020) highlighted digital inequality among school age children when the country responded to the coronavirus by shutting down schools. Before the pandemic, an estimated 12 million children were having difficulty completing homework assignments because they lacked home Internet. A disproportionate share of those students are African-American, Hispanic, live in rural areas, or come from low-income families (Walravens 2020). Internet-savvy school systems appeared to move forward relatively smoothly. However, some districts that lack infrastructure and serve largely poor populations are scrambling to deliver remote learning (Bentley 2020). A number of states have been forced to reckon with how the digital divide is impacting their youngest residents. For example, Idaho launched a media campaign called “Close the Divide” recognizing that 200,000 students in Idaho lack a computer and 30,000 do not have access to Wi-Fi. This is about 11% of the 1.8 million residents of Idaho. The campaign is seeking donated laptop computers and financial contributions to buy computers and increase Internet access (Close the Divide 2020). While initiatives like this one are valued, it is unfortunate that it required a pandemic to highlight the divide and advance efforts to close it.

Urban/Metro vs. Rural and Tribal Communities

An issue commonly raised in the literature is the digital divide between urban and rural communities, especially in terms of their differential access to broadband (West and Karsten 2016). Since the dawn of the Internet, rural areas have had less Internet access than urban areas. High-speed wired connections are less common, and wireless phone service and signals are weaker than in cities (or absent all together). Rural residents have fewer choices of Internet service providers (or none at all), pay higher prices for lower quality service, and generally earn less money than urban dwellers. Disparities could have adverse economic and social consequences for those left behind. A number of studies have demonstrated positive relationships between availability of broadband and greater economic growth in employment, number of business overall, and greater growth in median household incomes (Kruger and Gilroy 2019).

Broadband is currently largely deployed by the private sector and thus profit-driven. Because of this, there is less incentive for companies to invest in broadband in rural areas than in urban areas where there is more demand and where customers are more likely to have higher incomes and less cost to wire the market area. Broadband providers are less likely to enter rural markets due to the actual or perceived lower profitability of markets with lower population densities or rugged terrain which may be difficult to reach or build technological infrastructure (GAO 2006). There is less money to be made with lower population densities and running wires to rural areas costs more.

According to the FCC as of the end of 2017, over 26% of Americans in rural areas and 32% of Americans on tribal lands lack coverage from fixed terrestrial 25 Mbps/3 Mbps broadband, compared with only 1.5% of Americans in urban areas (FCC 2019). Approximately 14 million rural Americans and 1.2 million Americans living on tribal lands in 2017 lacked even low-speed mobile LTE broadband of speeds of 10 Mbps/3 Mbps (FCC 2018). According to Traci Morris, Director of the American Indian Policy Institute at Arizona State University, accurate measures of Internet access are lacking and thus likely overestimate connectivity because nationwide reports that measure digital access and literacy typically exclude Native American Populations (ASU 2019). While mobile phones are a tool to help residents on Native American land get online, many communities do not have reliable cell coverage nearby (Wang 2018). Tribal communities stand out as being among the most unserved and underserved populations with respect to broadband deployment. Writing in Politico, author Martha Harding McGill (2018) notes that nowhere is the digital divide more extreme than on tribal lands. According to the FCC (2020) “by virtually any measure, communities on tribal lands have historically had less access to telecommunications services than any other segment of the population” (p. 5).

While libraries play a vital role in rural and tribal locations to Internet access, they too lag behind more urban areas. According to a study by the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, 89% of tribal libraries that responded to a 2013 survey offer Internet access to patrons compared with 100% of public libraries (Jorgensen et al. 2014). At least 40% of tribal libraries lacked broadband Internet, and 14% of tribal libraries did not offer public computer workstations. While 86% of rural public libraries offer some form of free public Wi-Fi, only 68% of tribal libraries do; however, only 17% of tribal libraries in the study were able to provide Wi-Fi access when the library is closed. Eleven percent do not offer Internet access at all, and only 34% of tribal libraries had a website. Compared with public libraries nationwide, fewer tribal libraries can offer electronic resources for homework, licensed electronic databases, e-books, and online instructional courses and tutorials. While 87% of rural public libraries and 90% of all public libraries offer some type of training in technology, only 42% of tribal libraries offer similar training.

Rural students are severely restricted from educational opportunities compared with their urban counterparts including personalized online curricula, Internet-based research, and online testing. Further, rural communities may be unable to access critical government services that are increasingly provided through online portals such as Social Security, tax forms, and college student financial aid forms (West and Karsten 2016). Americans who are otherwise less likely to use the Internet, such as those with lower levels of income or education, confront an even larger disadvantage when living in a rural area. According to data collected by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), all persons, regardless of race or ethnicity, were less likely to use the Internet when living in rural areas; however, certain groups face a particularly large digital divide (Carlson and Goss 2016).

In metro areas, the biggest shortfalls are in the South, especially Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Georgia (Tomer et al. 2017). Within large metro areas, neighborhoods without broadband service are largely suburban. However, due to density, the largest absolute number of residents in low-subscription neighborhoods lives in areas that are more populous overall and includes four of the largest areas in the nation; Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and Chicago. In other words, while each metro area is below average in terms of the share of people living in low subscription neighborhoods, collectively, this group is composed of 5.7 million people. So, while rural communities are much more likely to lack access to broadband, many metro area neighborhoods also fail to connect significant number of residents to existing broadband service. Residents living in low subscription rate neighborhoods can be found in urban, suburban, and small metropolitan communities alike, but by far, access and subscription rates remain lowest in rural America (Tomer et al. 2017).