The implications of digital divide

New Zealanders are embracing the benefits of being connected online. It makes them more closely connected to the world, and helps navigate the downsides of distance. Internet is also playing a significant role in political engagement. Online participation is establishing a new form of participation that is conceptually distinct from offline modes such as voting, although there have been tactics in place for New Zealand to move to online voting as a result of the increasing costs of postal vote and the risks of losing a generation of voters. While this proposal seems promising, the decision to postpone the online voting trial states the obvious. Digital divide very much exists in New Zealand, with the driving factors being the levels of household income, educational qualification, and household composition.

Digital divide can have a fundamental impact on society and it is something that cannot be easily minimized with solutions being offered by public institutions like “Internet access for all”, as it does not take all citizens and generation groups into account. The trend in access to information by different groups in society are affected by the emerging new technologies and the gap between the information rich and the information poor continues to grow.

Those who have access to the majority of information tend to be higher socioeconomic status and are more likely to be involved in decision makings. On the opposite, those who do not actively interact online are considered as passive consumers of information and are certainly not involved in decision making. As a result, the information rich continue to get richer.

Though, information cannot only be provided through the internet and made available to those with access to technology and with internet connectivity. To my understanding, there is still a large proportion of society using traditional mass media information to acquire additional knowledge through television, radio, newspapers or magazines to search for requested information.

Nevertheless, computer-based information systems do play a vital role in making information available to those who rely heavily on such systems. Digital natives tend to invest a great deal of effort relying on information systems for conducting much of their personal lives including socializing, communicate, study, and create. Provided that they were born in the digital world, Prensky states that digital natives “think and process information fundamentally differently” from other groups in society, and are more likely to process information quickly. Prensky believes that digital native is increasingly becoming the dominant global demographic.

In summary, digital divide is purely inevitable. However, citizens can choose to either be the protagonists of this growing information and technology society or rather just be a passive consumer of information, so long as participation is encouraged through the creation of their own criteria of values to the information they pull out, whether it be from computer-based information system or traditional mass media information.

References

Chadwick, A., & Howard, P. N. (Eds.). (2008). Routledge handbook of internet politics. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.helicon.vuw.ac.nz

Čut, M. (2017, May 6). Digital natives and digital immigrants — how are they different. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://medium.com/digital-reflections/digital-natives-and-digital-immigrants-how-are-they-different-e849b0a8a1d3

Essays, UK. (November 2018). Relationship Between Information Rich in Information Poor. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/information-systems/relationship-between-information-rich-in-information-poor.php?vref=1

Molineaux, J. (2019). Solving and creating problems: Online voting in New Zealand. Auckland University of Technology. Retrieved from https://thepolicyobservatory.aut.ac.nz/

Niall, T. (2018, December 12). Online voting trial for 2019 elections scrapped. Stuff. 22:22.

Pensky, M. (2011). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon(9),5. Retrieved from https://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Stats NZ. (2004). Household access to the internet — article. New Zealand. Retrieved from http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/households/household-access-to-the-internet.aspx

Zwass, V. (2017). Information System. In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/information-system