The “Digital Divide” in the Age of Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic and the “social distancing” measures required for its mitigation have shifted most Americans’ professional, educational, and social lives to digital mediums. This drastic change has exposed and exacerbated America’s “digital divide”, or the gap in internet and technology access between disadvantaged individuals (both urban and rural) and wealthier populations. A recent study by M-Lab, a joint research project of New America, Google, and Princeton that seeks to geographically measure internet performance found that just in the last month, download speeds have now fallen below the government minimum (25 Mbps) in nearly 30 percent of US counties.
M-Lab’s findings stand in stark contrast with reports from internet service providers (ISPs) which assert that networks are performing well under the increased stress. While many of these companies have signed the FCC’s “Keep America Connected” pledge, which asked ISPs to refrain from terminating service to customers (both residential and commercial) who could not afford to pay their bills, the pledge did not include stipulations related to maintaining optimal performance across all communities served. This has contributed to significantly reduced internet speeds in many of the economically vulnerable places hardest hit by the pandemic such as the Bronx, which saw a 10 Mbps drop between February and March.
Even before the pandemic, broadband was considered an important social determinant of individual and community health, with a number of medical groups lobbying for it to become a subject of increased CDC study. Now, it has become a lifeline, providing access to critical information and services (tele-health, grocery deliveries, etc.) and enabling students and others forced to work from home to maintain their studies or livelihoods. Some communities have developed creative solutions such as parking wi-fi enabled school buses throughout neighborhoods with lower rates of internet access and poorer broadband performance.
However, virtually all of the emerging models for restarting the economy coming out of East Asia rely heavily on internet-connected devices and applications to monitor the location and trace the contacts of infected persons. If America’s current network capacity is already overloaded and performance in high-need areas is suffering as a result, it begs the question as to whether such solutions can effectively be implemented here. More broadly, it raises concerns as to whether other tech-driven pandemic prevention measures in the future will run the risk of excluding marginalized communities if the digital divide remains unaddressed.
