scispace - formally typeset
Journal ArticleDOI

Digital Divides From Access to Activities: Comparing Mobile and Personal Computer Internet Users

TLDR
While sociodemographic differences are more influential, device type can increase likelihood of use for some “capital enhancing” activities, but only for a computer, thus, although mobile Internet is available for those on the wrong side of the digital divide, these users do not engage in many activities, decreasing potential benefits.
Abstract
Digital inequality can take many forms. Four forms studied here are access to Internet, use of different devices, extent of usage, and engagement in different Internet activities. However, it is not clear whether sociodemographic factors, or devices, are more influential in usage and activities. Results from an unfamiliar context show that there are significant sociodemographic influences on access, device, usage, and activities, and differences in activities by device type and usage. While sociodemographic differences are more influential, device type can increase likelihood of use for some “capital enhancing” activities, but only for a computer. Thus, although mobile Internet is available for those on the wrong side of the digital divide, these users do not engage in many activities, decreasing potential benefits.

read more

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

The Emerging Mobile Internet Underclass: A Critique of Mobile Internet Access

TL;DR: A critical comparative analysis of mobile versus personal computer (PC)-based forms of Internet access illustrates a wide range of ways in which mobile Internet access offers lower levels of functionality and content availability; operates on less open and flexible platforms; and contributes to diminished levels of user engagement, content creation, and information seeking.
Journal ArticleDOI

Increasing inequalities in what we do online

TL;DR: The Internet seems to provide increasingly more capital-enhancing opportunities for those with higher education and income, which would accordingly reinforce their already strong positions in society.
Journal ArticleDOI

Distinguishing technologies for social interaction: The perceived social affordances of communication channels scale

TL;DR: In this article, the authors developed a measure to assess participants' perceptions of these affordances, including accessibility, bandwidth, social presence, privacy, network association, personalization, persistence, editability, conversation control, and anonymity.
Journal ArticleDOI

Smartphone Internet access and use: Extending the digital divide and usage gap:

TL;DR: Results show differences in smartphone dependence and use based on race, age, income, and education and suggest smartphones may act as both a bridge and a barrier for disadvantaged groups to overcome the digital divide.
Journal ArticleDOI

BIM and the small construction firm: a critical perspective

TL;DR: In this paper, a critical discourse is developed around the ways in which political reform agendas centred on BIM might not stimulate innovation on a wider scale, but could stimulate it on a smaller scale.
References
More filters
Book

Diffusion of Innovations

TL;DR: A history of diffusion research can be found in this paper, where the authors present a glossary of developments in the field of Diffusion research and discuss the consequences of these developments.
Journal ArticleDOI

Diffusion of Innovations

Book

Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the ways in which differing access to technology contributes to social and economic stratification or inclusion, and present case studies from developed and developing countries, including Brazil, China, Egypt, India, and the United States.
Book

The Deepening Divide: Inequality in the Information Society

TL;DR: A Framework to Understand the Digital Divide Motivational Access Material Access Skills Access Usage Access in the Information Society Inequality in the Network Society The Stakes: Participation or Exclusion Policy Perspective Perspective Reference Index as discussed by the authors
Journal ArticleDOI

Mass media flow and differential growth in knowledge

TL;DR: Tichenor et al. as discussed by the authors found that increasing the flow of news on a topic leads to greater acquisition of knowledge about that topic among the more highly educated segments of society, and whether the resulting knowledge gap closes may depend partly on whether the stimulus intensity of mass media publicity is maintained at a high level, or is reduced or eliminated at a point when only the more active persons have gained that knowledge.
Related Papers (5)