Introduction
The technological progress of the 21st century has triggered a chain of impressive changes in the lives of people all over the world. The evolution of ICT (Information and Communication technologies) has heralded the advent of the era of the information society. As a result, society was split into those who had access to modern media, and those who did not. Known as the Digital Divide, this phenomenon still exists, since most modern technologies are rather expensive; Australia is one of the countries stricken by it. In Australia, the Digital Divide manifests itself through the split between the urban (advanced) and the rural (regressive) areas (Soar, Schwinder & Tsang, 2010).
Digital Divide: Definition
Applied to the environment of an education establishment, the digital divine may denote the inequality between the students representing different tiers of society (Soar, Schwinder & Tsang, 2010).
Digital Divide and the Society: The Poor and the Rich
Though the link between technology and social interactions may seem rather feeble, the Digital Divide has literally split the society apart, which is especially evident in the setting of a public school. As a rule, the students, who have little to no gadgets, tend to be considered unpopular and even shunned to the point where they are ostracized by their moiré “advanced” peers. In addition, since most teenagers prefer virtual communication to real-life conversations, those young people, who do not have a social network account, are most likely to become outcasts among their group mates (Soar, Schwinder & Tsang, 2010).
Employment and Salary Options: Impact of Technology
Naturally, the introduction of modern technologies into the lives of ordinary people has contributed to bringing the unemployment rates down to an impressive degree. To be more exact, innovative technologies have allowed for an option of working remotely; As a result, a range of people, including employees with young children, employees with physical impairments, etc., to be able to get the positions that they would not have obtained otherwise (Marshall, Taylor & Yu, 2003).
However, the introduction of modern technologies into the business world has also triggered the necessity for candidates to acquire new skills, particularly, the skills of working with new technologies. As a result, more money has to be invested in updating one’s professional skills. Hence, technologies split employees into poor, who are incapable of acquiring the desired skills and knowledge, and rich ones, who have modern technology for training new skills at their disposal (Steyn & Johanson, 2010).
Health and the Related Issues: Virtual Healthcare
Technological innovations affect every single aspect of people’s lives, and healthcare is one of the fields that have been changed greatly. With the introduction of the outpatient principles into the modern healthcare service, the patients, who cannot access the latest information concerning healthcare services via the Internet, may fail to get the assistance that they need to recover (Steyn & Johanson, 2010).
Digital Divide: Origin and Key Factors
The roots of the phenomenon known nowadays as the Digital Divide are quite easy to trace down in practically every field that it has trickled into so far. For instance, as far as the Australian education is concerned, the Digital Divide was triggered by the fact that in education, technology defines the quality of the skills acquired as well as the information received in the course of the lesson.
More to the point, low-performance rates, which students from low-income families display, affects the quality of the education that such students get. As a result, students with little to no access to technological advances appear to be in a “vicious circle,” which is extremely hard to break from and affect the performance of their children after they grow up and become parents (Marshall, Taylor & Yu, 2003).
Digital Divide and Literacy Rates: The Power of Technology
As it has been stressed above, technological innovations define not only the quality of the students’ performance but also the rates of people’s literacy. While the latter can be trained without the latest gadgets, technology still contributes to a faster acquisition, analysis and memorization of data. Therefore, people with lower income and, therefore, lesser technological support have fewer opportunities for excelling in their academic performance, in contrast to the students from richer families.
For instance, when considering the number of people speaking English as their second language, one will find out that they make around 40% of the Internet users and only 5% of the entire world. Thus, the language gap, especially the inability to understand the English language, in which most of the guidelines to the usage of modern technologies are written, seems to be the key obstacle blocking poor people’s way of mastering the digital technologies (Soar, Schwinder & Tsang, 2010).
Digital Divide and Diversity: Gender, Age and Culture
Age
When analyzing the probable origins of the phenomenon known as the Digital Divide, one must take a closer look at age and culture-related issues. Age seems to be the most crucial factor in the emergence of the problem. Researches show that the older a person is, the harder it becomes for them to train new skills, especially related to the use of the latest technology, not to mention understanding how such technology works (Soar, Schwinder & Tsang, 2010).
Culture
One of the factors that have the greatest effect on the growth of the Digital Divide, the culture issue has shaped the present-day image of a user of modern technology greatly. In a way, analyzing the effects that culture has had on the Digital Divide development is rather tricky, since there are a variety of cultures, each possessing its unique features and defining the Digital Divide in its own way. Speaking of the Australian culture, in particular, one must mention that the gender issue seems to have the smallest significance out of all factors that facilitate the growth of the Digital Divide – most Australian women, even those that are married and have little children, have access to the ICT (Soar, Schwinder & Tsang, 2010).
Gender
Considered to be a side effect of culture reinforcement, the notorious gender gap plays a major part in the creation and a rapid increase in the Digital Divide. Unfortunately, in some countries, women are still inferior to men and are denied their irrefutable rights for education and personal growth. As a result, women display rather low rates of virtual interaction and engagement in online communication. There is also a widespread myth about women being less resourceful when it comes to dealing with technology. Though this statement clearly is a prejudice, it affects women’s self-esteem and makes them feel not intelligent enough to become advanced computer users. Hence, culture plays a major part in the gender factor of the Digital Divide phenomenon (Marshall, Taylor & Yu, 2003).
Location
As it has been stressed above, the residents of urban areas are considered to be more advanced in terms of usage of new technologies by default. Though such an assumption seems unfair towards the residents of rural areas, it seems to be quite fair as recent researches show, city dwellers, display much better abilities of using various gadgets than their rural counterparts do. Among the key factors predisposing such a phenomenon, the fact that in rural areas, opportunities for work and education are scarcer than in cities, deserves a mentioning. In addition, in rural areas, women are more apt to devoting themselves to taking care of household than to pursuing their career (Marshall, Taylor & Yu, 2003).
Financial Status
The income rate is doubtlessly an important factor in the creation of the Digital Divide. The less money people have, the fewer opportunities for accessing modern technologies they obtain. In Australia, a recent increase in the average family income was followed by a steep rise in the number of digital technology users (Soar, Schwinder & Tsang, 2010).
Health
People with physical disabilities or mental impairments face a range of challenges when using new technologies. Particularly, it takes them more time to master the “art” of surfing the Internet, communicating via social networks, etc. (Marshall, Taylor & Yu, 2003).
Digital Divide in Australia: In Search for a Solution
Education issues and the Digital Divide: a solution
There are many ways of looking at the problem; however, it is essential at present to view the Digital divide through the lens of education. It can be suggested that the process of helping students with accessing and using modern media should start with encouraging teachers for the use of modern media for educational purposes (Steyn & Johanson, 2010).
More to the point, a range of programs have been created to assist students in using new technology as a tool for excelling in their studies. These programs, as a rule, are run by specific education organizations, facilities or departments, which are responsible for enhancing literacy among students. Community Technology Centers take a very special place among such organizations. Apart from Community Technology Centers, EDUCASE should be mentioned as a very successful program for addressing the Digital Divide in schools, colleges and other education establishments.
At present, EDUCASE is the largest program in Australia in general and Victoria in particular. With the help of this program, the issue concerning the ICT access in rural areas has finally been solved, and a range of students from rural areas have finally gained the long-wanted access to a range of knowledge bases (Steyn & Johanson, 2010).
FUSE is another endeavor of the Australian education authorities, which is aimed at managing the Digital Divide issue. It offers very basic information of how to acquire information and be creative online (Steyn & Johanson, 2010).
Apart from tackling the basic problems of online information acquisition, FUSE, as the project of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, provides a set of interactive tasks for its visitors to learn the way in which online education works. The activities include playing games, reading downloadable content and performing simple tasks. It is remarkable that solutions for students with impairments, disabilities and disorders, including autistic students, students with dyslexia, etc. are also provided in online facilities (Steyn & Johanson, 2010).
Training skills
It can be suggested that extended education principles should be used in order to help students train their skills for using modern media (Soar, Schwinder & Tsang, 2010).
Online access options
Opening the access to new technologies is the first and the most important step towards eliminating the phenomenon of the Digital Divide (Soar, Schwinder & Tsang, 2010).
Relevance
Since low living standards seem to be key factor spurring the Digital Divide process, it will be reasonable to relate the relevance of the study to the improvement of the current Australian standards of living. With an increase in the annual family income, the gap between poor and rich students will become less obvious, and the former will be able to enjoy the access to modern technologies and, therefore, have more opportunities for proper education (Marshall, Taylor & Yu, 2003).
Life standards improvement
The quality of life standards should be upgraded a few notches to make the gap between different tiers of society less obvious (Marshall, Taylor & Yu, 2003).
Government
The significance of government is not to be underestimated when it comes to designing a strategy for addressing the Digital Divide issue. It is crucial that the Australian government should promote the significance of education among students and reduce the taxation rates in the realm of education (Soar, Schwinder & Tsang, 2010).
Conclusion
This presentation aims at exploring the phenomenon of Digital Divide on a global scale, as well as in the setting of the Australian continent. The key reasons for the Digital Divide to occur are discussed in the paper together with the most obvious solutions to the problem. It is crucial to provide all students with an opportunity to have an access to modern technologies by improving the quality of education, as well as the standards of living, which are currently accepted in Australia.
Reference List
EDUCASE (2014). Web.
FUSE (2014). Web.
Marshall, S., Taylor, W. & Yu, X. X. (2003). Closing the Digital Divide: Transforming regional economies and communities with information technology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Soar, J., Schwinder, R. & Tsang, P. (2010). Intelligent technologies for bridging the grey digital divide. Hershey, NY: IDI.