The Digital Divide Is Leaving Americans Behind

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By Jessica Goodman2013-08-18 22:00:01 UTC

At one Newark public high school, accessible Wi-Fi can be more valuable than a bus ride home.

In Newark, a city with one of the highest poverty rates in the U.S., many Newark Leadership Academy students can't afford home Internet access. At the school, like all public schools in the city, Wi-Fi isn't available to teachers or students. Instead, teens hungry for an online connection seek alternatives in order to fill out job and college applications, complete homework assignments and stay connected to the outside world.

“If they knew someone who could turn their phone into a hot spot, they would actually pay other students to use their data,” said Richard Fabriano, a 30-year-old teacher at the school. “They would trade bus tickets ... if they lived two or more miles away, or a couple of bucks if they had it.”

Many of Fabriano's students would prefer a two-mile walk home over a missed Wi-Fi opportunity.

The term “digital divide” is often used to discuss the connectivity gap among distinct regions and demographics. In June, a White House broadband report concluded the divide is still very much present in the U.S. Though the report found that 91% of Americans had access to high-speed Internet service of at least 10 Mbps downstream, only 71% of Americans actually subscribed to broadband at home — an adoption rate lower than other nations with a similar GDP. That adoption rate was even lower among African-Americans and Hispanics. The report cited cost and skill level as major reasons so many Americans forgo broadband access at home.

Of course, some pundits and industry insiders point to the proliferation of smartphones and other wireless devices as reasons many people opt out of home broadband service.

“Americans are more apt to rely on wireless only, for Internet access because it’s affordable and accessible,” Jamie Hastings, a vice president at the trade organization Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, said in an interview. Currently there are over 100 million wireless connections in the United States.

Hastings referenced a 2009 Digital Millennial study that looked at low-income neighborhoods in North Carolina. The test gave students smartphones hooked up to Windows Mobile software, meant to provide algebra help. “Teachers told us that the phones took average students and turned them into honors students,” she says.

Although some believe mobile is helping to close that divide, it's not without consequences.

In particular, certain groups of students are turning primarily to smartphones for their Internet needs, thus, falling behind on necessary computer skills.

An April 2012 Pew Center study showed 88% of Americans over the age of 18 have a cellphone (smartphone or otherwise), and 66% of Americans aged 18-29 have smartphones. But only 57% of Americans have a laptop.

The survey also stated, “Among smartphone owners, young adults, minorities, those with no college experience and those with lower household income levels are more likely than other groups to say that their phone is their main source of Internet access.”

For many young Americans who cannot afford wireless Internet, smartphones are portals to the web. A budget, unlocked Samsung Galaxy Ace phone running an older version of Android retails for $199.99 and does not require the purchase of a pricey data plan. Its users can hook up to public Wi-Fi when available.

However, high school students at Newark Leadership Academy told Mashable a smartphone might allow them to apply for a job or download music, but many students have found it impossible to perform the same quality of work on a smartphone that they might be able to on a personal computer.

Rachel Warzala, a 23-year-old Teach For America teacher at Newark Leadership Academy, found the use of smartphones as academic tools problematic for her students’ long-term computer literacy.

“A lot of my students have smartphones, and that doesn’t mean they have a computer with Internet access at home. That doesn’t mean they can type or submit assignments,” she said.

Every time the high school English teacher gave an assignment that required a computer or Internet access, she took a risk. She estimated nine out of 10 of her students didn’t have Internet access or personal computers at home.

When Warzala gave a midterm assignment asking students to analyze gender in pop culture, she received varying results. One student handed in an essay about the portrayal of “fly girls” in hip hop videos written entirely on her iPhone.

“They’re extremely computer-illiterate, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not tech-savvy,” Warzala said of her students. “They’re all over Twitter but they don’t know how to save a Word document.”

A few months into her first year of teaching at the alternative vocational school funded by Mark Zuckerberg’s YouthBuild Program, Warzala realized if she wanted to give a computer-based project, she would have to factor twice as much time into her lesson plans.

“Many of my students couldn’t do research at home. They couldn’t write a paper at home, so my choices were to either create a 10-day assignment out of something that would take five, or don’t assign anything.” For a few projects, she would give five points extra credit if a student handed his or her work in typed.

Fabriano, who grew up in a middle-class neighborhood only a half-hour away from where he now teaches in Newark, had the same experience. “It would take my students three or four times longer to type a paper than it would anybody else,” Fabriano said. He couldn't build assignments upon already existing Internet skills of his students — they had none. Instead, he relied more on printed materials for homework and class assignments.

“I had more access to computers way back in 1999 when I was in high school than my students have access to today,” he said, “which is really scary to me.”

And the rising cost of smartphone data plans limits low-income students’ ability to get online, even if they have the device. In 2012, the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association reported that an average monthly cellphone bill — including voice, data and taxes — cost $47.16. But other news outlets reported the average bill to be as high as $71 or $80 per month.

In spite of claims that the digital divides has been fixed or reduced by smartphones, it might actually be widening.

The federal definition for “basic broadband” is 3 Mbps downstream, according to the White House Broadband Report. The government found 98.18% of the U.S. population has access to such, whether it be wireless or wireline. But getting that level of Internet in urban areas at an affordable price is difficult.

Cable and broadband companies like Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, which cover some 50 million Americans, make it nearly impossible for low-income or impoverished residents to access Internet for less than $30 per month. The bare minimum Internet contract with Time Warner Cable in New York City, for example, is $24.98 per month, plus installation, hardware and a monthly tax. Deemed “Lite Internet,” this package offers speed of up to 1 Mbps, 2 Mbps less than the government's definition of “basic broadband.”

The White House acknowledged in its June report that a better definition for broadband going forward might be 10 Mbps, which would make true broadband access even harder to affordably access in many areas.

“Having fast, reliable Internet access is a basic human right," said Susan Crawford, telecommunications policy expert and former White House official. “It makes zero sense that in this nation people are not able to do school work or basic communication. It’s not the people’s fault. It’s the marketplace’s fault. It should cost every family in America about $30 or $40 a month for a very standard connection to your home, and many people can’t afford that.”

She believes that, in order to get America online, the government must treat Internet access like the early-twentieth century government treated telephone service.

In large cities, finding an Internet plan as low as $40 per month that actually meets the federal definition of broadband is like finding a cab in Times Square during a snowstorm. Last year the FCC reported that 100 million people in the U.S. lived in areas where they had access to broadband, but did not subscribe.

Instead, folks in urban areas in search of free Internet often wind up at libraries. New York City libraries house over 4,000 publicly available computers and 1,300 laptops available for rent. New York Public Library President and CEO Anthony Marx told Mashable the New York Public Library was the leading free provider of basic computer skills training, with over 7,700 classes in all of its branches. Marx said these classes were intended to increase computer literacy among New Yorkers.

“If you don’t have the basic computer skills, you can’t apply for a job. You can’t be qualified for a job. Let alone emailing your mother and keeping in touch with her,” he said.

But Marx said that over the past five years, the city has reduced the library’s funding by about 18%, and though they haven’t closed branches or reduced staff, it’s nearly impossible to reach every New Yorker in need of a computer or wireless access.

In recent years, non-profit programs have aimed to get low-income families online for reduced prices. Connect2Compete offers Internet for as low as $10 a month. But in order for households to qualify, they must have a student who receives reduced-fare lunches or live in a household with a median income below $35,000 in a “pre-qualified” zip code. Zach Leverenz, CEO of Connect2Compete, said in an interview that the organization aims to give 30 million Americans home wireless in the next three years. Families who do not meet the specified requirements are not eligible.

Especially, students with limited home Internet access and computer literacy skills have found it increasingly difficult to find, apply for and obtain jobs, even at minimum-wage positions. More than 80% of Fortune 500 companies require online job applications, and national chains like Foot Locker don’t even allow potential employees to apply in person. FAFSA documents used to obtain student aid are much easier to fill out online, and are some colleges won’t accept them in print.

“If you don’t have [Internet] access at home, I’m not going to give you this assignment because it’s not fair to you,” Warzala explained. “But if I don’t give you this assignment, you’re never going to know that skill. Then you can’t get a work force job where you need to use a computer because you don’t know how to use Microsoft Word, which is an assumed skill at this point.” She paused. “It’s a cycle.”

School work comes secondary. “If I give an assignment that I say has to be typed in Times New Roman 12-point font, and they throw it in my face and say, ‘I’m not doing it,’” Warzala asked, “are they being defiant or are they afraid because they don’t know how to use a computer?”

Warzala ended her two-year teaching position at Newark Leadership Academy in June 2013. At the end of the school year she pulled classroom decorations off the wall: cutout footballs and goal posts, pasted thought bubbles and multi-colored folders arranged in straight lines. A fake bright red apple sat on her desk in the back of the classroom.

She moved to Manhattan and started a new job where she, unsurprisingly, will use a computer and the Internet everyday. A handful of her students are off to Essex Community College, and one will attend a four-year bachelor’s degree program at Kean University.

Inside those institutions’ walls, wireless will be a given — no more bartering for hot spot access, no more long walks home.

Lead illustration: Mashable, Bob Al-Greene. Images: Mashable.

Topics: education, Family & Parenting, Jobs, Lifestyle, Mashable Spotlight, Mobile, teens, U.S., U.S., US & World, Work & Play