Digital divide is the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access information and communication technologies and to their use of the Internet. The digital divide reflects various differences among and within countries (OECD 2001).
Digital divide may also be caused by poor design of application. According to some surveys by Emor there were 42% of Internet users of age 15-74 in February 2002 and 66% in 2007. The number of people who are able and willing to reach Internet is rising but while they are interested in some kind of usabilities they are often not aware of the variety of services they could access or the design of the applications is confusing, not at good level of usability or difficult to learn. Consequently they avoid those. For example the e-Tax Board was first launched with so poor architecture that even technically experienced users had difficulties to navigate and reach the destination. I suggested some acquaintances to use e-Tax Board to get overview of some tax problems they had and they looked at me with great surprise asking if I thin they are some scientists to use this.
So I think one criteria to get computer users to use more Internet applications is to design them suitably for the user group they are intended to. Another problem causing great digital divide is the lack of interest from the group not acquainted to the new technologies. In rural areas the youth is certainly motivated to use computers and surf the Net but older generations are more difficult get involved.
Based on "Digital divide and how to bridge it" Emor (RISC study) survey indicates that non-users of the Internet account for 58% of the Estonian population bracket in the age group 15–74, i.e. 607,000 people, as of February 2002. So there was 42% of Internet users. In the end of 2007 there was 687 000 Internet users of age 15-74, which is 66% of the population of that age.
The Internet availability in Estonia is rather high in my opinion. First of all I guess it is possible to have Internet at almost any household if there is interest for it. There are very many public networks in towns. Without personal laptop there are libraries and several other Internet access points, but not so much in rural areas. In rural areas there are less possibilities for almost anything (to leave nature out) so it seems logical. But this may be one reason for digital divide for elderly people as they have less interest and skills for technology.
Digital divide may also be caused by poor design of application. According to some surveys by Emor there were 42% of Internet users of age 15-74 in February 2002 and 66% in 2007. The number of people who are able and willing to reach Internet is rising but while they are interested in some kind of usabilities they are often not aware of the variety of services they could access or the design of the applications is confusing, not at good level of usability or difficult to learn. Consequently they avoid those. For example the e-Tax Board was first launched with so poor architecture that even technically experienced users had difficulties to navigate and reach the destination. I suggested some acquaintances to use e-Tax Board to get overview of some tax problems they had and they looked at me with great surprise asking if I thin they are some scientists to use this.
So I think one criteria to get computer users to use more Internet applications is to design them suitably for the user group they are intended to. Another problem causing great digital divide is the lack of interest from the group not acquainted to the new technologies. In rural areas the youth is certainly motivated to use computers and surf the Net but older generations are more difficult get involved.
Based on "Digital divide and how to bridge it" Emor (RISC study) survey indicates that non-users of the Internet account for 58% of the Estonian population bracket in the age group 15–74, i.e. 607,000 people, as of February 2002. So there was 42% of Internet users. In the end of 2007 there was 687 000 Internet users of age 15-74, which is 66% of the population of that age.
The Internet availability in Estonia is rather high in my opinion. First of all I guess it is possible to have Internet at almost any household if there is interest for it. There are very many public networks in towns. Without personal laptop there are libraries and several other Internet access points, but not so much in rural areas. In rural areas there are less possibilities for almost anything (to leave nature out) so it seems logical. But this may be one reason for digital divide for elderly people as they have less interest and skills for technology.
No comments:
Post a Comment