Misconception #3: The Digital Divide

Here is an example of muddled thinking from an article titled India Bridges the Digital Divide. The article is about computer kiosks. At one point it says:

Over the past decade, the Internet has been touted as a powerful engine that could raise living standards in poor and remote communities of the Third World by opening up new avenues for education, commerce and participatory democracy.

So far so good. Then it goes into the usual whining about the digital divide.

But the reality is a growing digital divide that is preventing the poor from sharing in the benefits of the Information Age. The gap between digital haves and have-nots is especially wide in India, where a national survey last year revealed that fewer than 1 percent of adults had used the Internet in the preceding three months.

OK, let’s get one thing clear. It is not the digital divide that is preventing the poor from benefiting from ICT. It is the fact that they are poor that is preventing them from benefiting from ICT. Not just benefiting from the use of ICT, the poor also are not benefiting from the advances in medical technology, in cosmetic surgery, in plasma TV technology, ad nauseum. It is not the digital divide, stupid, it is an income divide, it is a wealth divide, it is an opportunity divide.

If the poor had money, they would not be poor, and like all non-poor, would be able to buy all sorts of stuff — including, but not limited to — digital gizmos. They would buy education, clothes, food, houses, cell phones, cd players, DVD players, plasma TVs, and computers. There would not be a digital divide. It bears repeating: the digital divide is not the cause of poverty nor is it the cause of the persistence of poverty. The digital divide is a result — an effect, a consequence — of poverty.

Now coming to India: India does not have a digital divide. Let me put that in bold.

India does not have a digital divide.

If a vanishingly small number of people have something, there is no divide. For instance, it is pointless to talk about a BMW divide: we are all in the same boat when it comes to having BMWs and therefore there is no divide. So also, to a first approximation, Indians don’t have access to the Internet, except for a few million people. And the few million who do have it, have to pay inordinate amounts of money to get a slow uncertain connection.

I hope that we can put that myth to rest one of these days.

Author: Atanu Dey

Economist. View all posts by Atanu Dey