The racial divide in Internet devices
A Pew Internet report says that while 56% of Americans have accessed the Internet wirelessly, there’s a stark racial divide in the devices we use. About half of the African-American and English-speaking Hispanic population accesses the Net through cellphones and other handheld devices, but only 28% of white Americans have ever done so.
Three bullet points quoted from the report:
* 48% of Africans Americans have at one time used their mobile device to access the internet for information, emailing, or instant-messaging, half again the national average of 32%.
* 29% of African Americans use the internet on their handheld on an average day, also about half again the national average of 19%.
* Compared with 2007, when 12% of African Americans used the internet on their mobile on the average day, use of the mobile internet is up by 141%.
We can read this in many different ways:
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Mobiles are helping to end the digital racial divide
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Mobiles are extending the digital racial divide by providing second-class Net access to African Americans
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For a far greater percentage of African Americans than white Americans, the Net is less generative and participatory
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We’d better make sure that the carriers become device independent and Net neutral
Categories: Uncategorized dw
David, could you elaborate on your third facet?
Are you thinking that the hardware with which the non-white populace is accessing the net is less likely to be generative, morel likely to be tethered/ crippled whereas since white Americans aren’t using these things, (phones, etc.) they are probably using actual computers, which are less likely to be tethered, more likely to be generative?
I guess I’d also like to see % of each racial group who access the net at all.
Adam, your elaboration is indeed what I had in mind. Little screens, slow processors, itsy keyboards…
[...] Interesting report, which makes me more intent than ever on finding ways to experience the Net with simply a phone. I’m signing off now for the next week, and will be in Wyoming hiking with my sisters. [...]
I’m a caucanglo and I use both platforms but I gotta tell ya that it’s mainly because Apple refuses to come out with the iNewton (iNetwon) / Kindle / Media Pad / Axiotron ModBook thingie with VOIP and speech rec built in at an affordable price — at least I think so at this point.
FYI: http://mobileactive.org and http://mobileactive.org/blog
“A Pew Internet report says that while 56% of Americans have accessed the Internet wirelessly, there’s a stark racial divide in the devices we use. About half of the African-American and English-speaking Hispanic population accesses the Net through cellphones and other handheld devices, but only 28% of white Americans have ever done so.”
Speaking of that Pew Research report, a representative of Pew just discussed its findings in a recent podcast about changing online demographics.