In the 1980s, the gap between personal computer and telephone densities among demographics and regions used to be perceived as the digital divide, widening inequality. In 1990s, access to the internet was added to it. In recent times, mobile phone and smartphone penetration has also been added. In 1990s, bright-eyed kids sitting in front of computers with internet access were perceived to be in a significantly advantageous position than those having no or limited access to computers and the internet. Particularly, the gap between rich and poor was extremely wide. Then the gap began to erode. Technology progression coupled with public investment and reform in the telecom sector accelerated the progress in reducing the gap. With less than 1 per cent telephone density and almost nonexistent personal computer density in the 1990s, the digital divide between OECD (offshore economic cooperation and development) member courtiers, and developing and least developed countries was significantly wide. But just over a span of two decades, mobile phone and internet density have crossed 70 per cent in more or less all demographics and regions across the world.
Smartphones having the computing power equivalent to supercomputers of the 1990s are even common in the hands of common citizens of developing countries. With such a progress, we have reduced the digital divide as it was defined two decades ago. But there has been a new concern with such a progress-opening a new dimension of inequality.
Digital inequality is now defined broadly in terms of people's internet usage, skills and self-perceptions. People having limited or no access to the internet and digital devices are being perceived to be at a disadvantageous stage. But smartphone and social media-centric internet usages are rather opening a new dimension of digital inequality. Youths and teens having access to mobile internet and smartphones are mostly using digital resources for non-productive purposes. Often, they are developing addictive association leading to social disengagement. As a result, access to digital resources is weakening the social, cognitive and creative abilities of those youths and teens, who were thought to be in an advantageous position due to the access to the internet and digital gadgets.
There has been a growing concern about deliberate attempts by mobile apps makers in taking advantage of psychological vulnerabilities--to cause addictive attachment of those apps with kids. As a result, concern about social isolation and erosion of cognitive as well as creative abilities of the next generation has already reached an alarming level. A recently completed study on 5,885 child-directed Android apps found that "well over half of the apps potentially violated the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (Coppa)." Further study is required to have a comprehensive assessment to support the formulation of regulatory guidelines to make smartphone-centric applications safe for children. There is an urgency of awareness and advocacy campaign to make technology an enabling factor to support human progression.
Although often there is competition among well-off parents, particularly in developing countries, in offering latest electronic gadgets like iPhone, iPad or game stations to their kids, concerns about the negative consequential effects have been growing. Numerous studies reveal that the strong association, often addictive in nature, of kids and teens with smart devices, is weakening the creative and social capabilities at an alarming rate. Being aware of such negative consequence, parents are often found restricting their children's access to these devices. As reported by the media, a 2017 survey conducted by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation found 907 Silicon Valley parents who, despite high confidence in technology's benefits, have serious concerns about tech-impact on kids' psychological and social development.
The widespread availability of low cost, powerful digital technologies is also contributing to growing inequality in job creation among geographies. By taking advantage of digital technologies, companies in the OECD member countries are innovating automated production solutions meant for developing and least developed countries. Development of these advanced automation solution is creating knowledge-intensive high-paying jobs in rich countries while killing labour-intensive jobs on the factory floors of poorer countries. Moreover, development of digital technologies is creating high-paying jobs in industrial nations, while their usages are often exposing youths and kids of less developed countries to non-productive engagements. On one hand, developing countries are draining precious foreign currency in importing digital technologies, and on the other, those imported technologies are eroding productive hours, creativity and social skills.
The democratisation of mobile internet connectivity and smartphone ownership is opening widespread opportunity of service digitisation. Starting from retailing to the delivery of health service, virtually all-major critical services are on the way to move to digital platforms. But the migration of these services on digital platforms through market forces is expanding the inequality further. Such transformation is killing jobs, mostly at the lower middle-income segments of the society. On the other hand, digital startups in developing countries are inviting venture capital firms from advanced countries to finance those ventures driving service transformation. For example, among others, Softbank has so far pumped $6b in India's digital service market buying shares in major startups starting from Flipkart to Ola. Without having basic innovation capability, these digital service startups are mostly relying on subsidy strategy, creating the demand for large risk capital. Due to the very limited supply of such capital from domestic sources, foreign funds are taking this advantage to take over the domestic service industries across most developing countries.
Once it was believed that with limited access to digital technologies, developing countries were falling behind further. But in reality, once the conventional digital divide is being addressed, larger inequality issue shows up. With the progression of digital technologies, developing countries are draining a huge amount of foreign currency to import devices and services from rich countries. Adoption of these technologies is killing jobs and transferring ownership of domestic service industries to foreign hands. Some of the services such as advertisement are fully being migrated to global digital platforms owned by monopolies like Facebook or Google. Moreover, some of the applications are engaging youths into non-productive and also addictive activities in digital space. Such new dimension of inequality caused by digital technologies is a serious cause for concern. If steps are not taken to address it, the inequality between advanced and less developed countries is going to expand further.
M Rokonuzzaman PhD is academic, researcher and activist on technology, innovation and policy. [email protected]
