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Infotech JSS2 Digital Divide

The document discusses the digital divide and the transition from the old to the new economy. The digital divide refers to the gap between those who have access to technology like computers and the internet versus those who do not. There are global, social, and democratic divides. The old economy was industrial and mechanized, while the new economy is digital, knowledge-based, and less constrained by time and distance. The new economy provides benefits like lower business costs, more jobs, and greater technological literacy.

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Maria Elizabeth
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315 views

Infotech JSS2 Digital Divide

The document discusses the digital divide and the transition from the old to the new economy. The digital divide refers to the gap between those who have access to technology like computers and the internet versus those who do not. There are global, social, and democratic divides. The old economy was industrial and mechanized, while the new economy is digital, knowledge-based, and less constrained by time and distance. The new economy provides benefits like lower business costs, more jobs, and greater technological literacy.

Uploaded by

Maria Elizabeth
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Information Technology

Digital divide

Digital divide is a major concern of many citizens around the world. The digital divide is the idea that you
can separate people of the world into two distinct groups:

i. Those who have access to technology and


ii. Those who do not have access to technology.

In the definition, technology includes items such as telephones, television, computers and the internet.

Examples of situations where digital divide are evident include:

 People living in cities having access to more information than those living in rural areas.
 Countries which are developed and countries which are developing.
 The educated and the uneducated people.
 Socio-economic classes, i.e. the rich and poor.

Some people refer to the digital divide as the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Based on this,
we can have a grouping as shown in the table below:

Haves (have access to technology) Have-nots (do not have access to technology)
cities Rural areas
Educated people Uneducated people
More industrially developed nations Less industrially developed nations
Upper-income families Lower-income families

There are three aspects of the digital divide. These are:

i. Global Divide: This is the digital divide between industrialized and developing societies in
terms of internet and technological access, e.g. USA and Nigeria.
ii. Social Divide: This is the digital divide between those who have access to information and
those who do not within a given society, e.g. those in cities have more access to information
than those in the rural areas.
iii. Democratic Divide: This is the divide between those who do and those who do not use
internet resources to engage in political issues.

In order words, digital divide is considered as the disparity between the information-rich and
information-poor people. This disparity is due to several barriers such as: availability of technology,
socio-economic status, physical region, age, language and education.

The problem of digital divide is related in part to the availability of technology and therefore,
education must be provided to solve this problem. Digital divide is a gap that will not close unless
there is an initiative to seal the gap. To help narrow the gap, governments need to provide universal
access to information and communication technologies, initiate programs to educate people and
create community centres to help rural people.

Features of Old and New Economy

Our society has changed from an industrial to information society because of advances in
technology. The economy for every nation is changing rapidly from one based upon the production
of goods to one based on the provision of services. These services are related to various aspects of
information, i.e. its creation, manipulation, transfer and protection. The growth in the number of
computers and in their capacity for higher performance has led to the information age.

Old economy

During the industrial era, increases in productivity were achieved by investing large amounts of
capital in physical plant facilities. The investment in the office and I business information systems
was relatively small, this was the old economy.

Limitations

The old economy has to do with manual data processing. Based on this, the old economy had the
following characteristics:

1. Its processes were time consuming.


2. It requires a lot of labour.
3. It was mechanically driven.
4. It was constrained by space, time and distance.

The New Economy

Towards the end of the old era, the investment in computers increased, particularly as the transition
from manual data processing systems to computer data processing system took place. The transition
can be regarded as a shift from the old to the new economy.

The new economy is the era of computing. It is the period of electronic data processing. The
features of the new economy include:

1. It is digital.
2. It is not constrained by time, space and distance.
3. It is a knowledge-based system because it provides information-related occupations.

Benefits of the New Economy

In the new economy, computer technology has been advanced and computers have therefore
become smaller, cheaper and faster. Benefits of this advanced technology include:
a. As individual, we may acquire and use personal computers, mobile phones or multimedia game
machines.
b. As members of the society, our social existence have made us become more technologically-
literate. The simple activity of living requires us to use a greater number of information
technology devices. For example, we can shop online, request telephone banking services, etc.
c. Computers have become more portable and more reliable. Communications between these
computers have become faster, cheaper and less restrictive.

Benefits of the new economy therefore, include:

1. Low capital requirement to start businesses: the period of investing huge amount of capital on
large warehouses, big plant-facilities and machineries is gone.
2. Creation of new jobs.

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