Big Bandage for a Narrowing Internet Gap
President Clinton’s pledge to help bring Internet access to all Americans--and close what he calls a digital divide--faces one immediate problem: strong evidence that government intervention is not needed and is a waste of money in an age of low cost computers and online access.
In his speech, the president argued that those without entry to the Information Age will be left out of the economic boom.
“We must close the digital divide between those who’ve got the tools and those who don’t,” he said. “This is a national crusade. We have got to do this and do it quickly.”
But critics claim that the president’s plan to upgrade schools for Internet access--part of an ongoing $4-billion federal effort to bring the Internet to nearly everyone--ignores the reality that the digital divide, which existed in the mid-1990s, is all but gone.
“When the Internet was only a few years old . . . and personal computers cost thousands of dollars,” a much smaller percentage of blacks were online than whites, said Adam Clayton Powell III, vice president of technology and programs at the Freedom Forum, a Virginia-based media research group. “But today, with dirt-cheap Internet access and computers approaching the costs of television sets, assertions of a ‘digital divide’ . . . are as correct as pinning last week’s Dow at 1,000.”
Last year, Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass., consulting firm, reported that the Internet access gap had all but closed. The study found that Latinos, blacks and Asians were signing up for Internet access faster than whites. And it predicted that the share of Latino, black and white households online would converge around 40% to 44%. The share of Asian households online will remain higher, at 68%, the study said.
“There is no digital divide in terms of race,” said Ekaterina O. Walsh, author of the Forrester study.
Her work is backed up by a study released last year by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, based in Claremont, Calif., that showed Latinos purchasing computers at twice the rate of whites.
Answering these critics, administration officials said that the digital divide does exist and that there is a continuing need to connect more Americans to the Internet.
African Americans, who had lagged behind all other ethnic groups in going online, now have become such a force in cyberspace that Larry Irving, a former administration official who promoted the idea of a digital divide, quit his job this fall to team with former basketball star Magic Johnson and launch a Web site targeted at blacks.
And whatever gaps do exist, Walsh said, stem less from race than income, education and age. And she added that new technology, such as wireless Internet devices and lower computer prices, may render those factors irrelevant.
To be sure, gaps in Internet use still exist, especially in rural areas. But experts say that they are closing fast and will all but disappear within the next 12 to 36 months--as did the huge gap that once existed between the number of men and women using online services.
“To be quite frank, a lot of people are simply elitist and believe getting people online takes a lot of money. That’s just not true,” said Jerry Cronin, who helped 500 residents in Watts get Internet access in less than a year while serving as technology coordinator for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Cronin said that he cajoled area businesses into donating used computers and teamed with a local entrepreneur to furnish access for $10 a month. His effort is being duplicated by others, including the Oakland Technology Exchange, in Oakland, Calif., which has furnished more than 3,000 computers.
“With all of these companies throwing out perfectly good computers, I thought I could get people online through volunteerism,” said Cronin, a former Peace Corps volunteer.
Perception Linked to July Study
The notion of a digital divide gained credence last July when Irving’s Commerce Department unit, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, issued a study titled ‘Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide.” The study looked at 1998 census data and concluded that the gap between minority and white households using the Internet had widened--from a difference of 13 percentage points in 1997 to a 20-point gap one year later.
“Minorities will continue to face a greater digital divide as we move into the next century,” the study concluded.
But even as the telecommunications agency study put the issue on the map, its findings raised eyebrows. It was widely noted that some minority groups, particularly Asians, were online in greater percentages than whites. And studies both before and after federal findings were released found Latinos and African Americans going online at much higher rates than whites.
A study published in the April, 1998, issue of Science magazine, for instance, said that nearly twice as many African Americans as whites planned to purchase home computers in the six months after the survey was conducted.
More recent studies suggest that is exactly what happened.
Despite such evidence, Washington politics, a booming economy and an unskeptical press have combined to raise the notion of a digital divide from a contentious statistical claim to a cause celebre.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley convened a Digital Divide Summit last month. Public television stations on Friday began airing a series on the subject this week. And the government has even launched a Web site devoted to the issue: https://www.digitaldivide.gov.
Some veteran Internet observers, however, do find the government’s case persuasive.
“If you are part of the working poor or are on government assistance [and subscribe to a web service], you are talking about a substantial amount of your income going to Internet access,” said Russell de Pina, an online commentator who heads DesignGroup Technology, a consulting firm in Long Beach.
Yet the cost of getting on line has dropped so precipitously that some schools are finding it hard to spend government subsidies solely on securing Internet access.
Some school officials have sought to use federal wiring funds to pay for new carpeting or paint. And although the president did not put a price tag on his new proposals Thursday, he wants additional spending earmarked for computer-related school construction, particularly upgrading older buildings, 1,000 new high-tech centers and teachers’ computer training.
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* RETURN TO ACTIVISM
With a budget surplus making it safe to talk about spending, Clinton offers big plans. A14
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* NEW RETIREMENT PLAN
President Clinton’s new savings proposal is geared to help low-income families. C1
