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So Long, Digerati: The Vanishing Digital Divide
As recently as three years ago, studies showed that the majority of Net users were similiar -- high-income, tech-savvy, mostly white, male and very career-minded. They constituted a highly tech-centered subset of the population, a distinct techno-elite.
Their understanding of and experience with technology was radically different from that of most Americans, few of whom were online. Included in this group were the people literally constructing the elements of the computer revolution, and building the Net and the Web. There was consequently a powerful class element to computing -- poor, older and blue-collar people were, by and large, not involved.
That has changed, suddenly and dramatically. Despite media reports of a tech slump, computer and Net use is exploding, and among all age groups and class, racial and ethnic categories. As many suspect, the much-hyped tech slump has mostly hit poorly run, ill-conceived dot.coms, not mainstream technological use or growth.
And boy, has the Net gone mainstream:
According to Nielsen/NetRatings, 56 percent of the U.S. population, nearly 154 million peoople, accessed the Net in the month of November, 2000 alone. This represents a whopping 30 percent increase over the previous year alone.
The average age of the Net user, reports ZDNet, is now 39 years, and rising. At the same time, their average education -- 38 percent hold a college degree -- is falling.
So is their socio-economic status. One of the dominant characters of tech culture has been it's affluent, educated, tech-centeredness. No longer true. The fastest-growing segment of Web newcomers are Americans over 55 years old with working-class incomes, older members of minority groups, blue-collar workers, and people with decidedly non-tech interests and backgrounds. The new generation of wired Americans, says American Demographics, looks "increasingly like the folks who cruise your local Wal-Mart." From the surveys, they are clearly drawn online by e-mail, other messaging systems, and especially, entertainment and related communities.
These new figures don't mean that all poor people actually have computers or are even online. Members of the underclass -- especially minorities -- continue to lag behind when it comes to access to computing. But the divide is definitely shrinking, and faster that all but a few starry-eyed visionaries ever predicted.
This means that in the United States, Net users are no longer a monolithic group with anything resembling a common view, either of the Net, technology or other political issues. There are so many different people of different backgrounds using the Net in different ways that the very idea of a typical Net user -- or a digital citizen -- has vanished.
Despite that, the tech core -- the geeks, nerds, programmers, designers will almost surely continue a separate entity, shaping and and influencing computing and the evolution of the Net and Web.
But clearly, there are other significant constituencies online now as well, and the class differences are interesting. The newcomers are different from the first generation of Net users, primarily because they aren't as interested in the underlying technology, but see the Net much as they see TV, a focal point for varied activities.
There are other differences as well. In fact, says Nielsen, last May the number of women online surpassed the number of men for the first time. And Harris Interactive reports that the online community has grown by more than 900 per cent over the past six years.
This new reality will change the political and economic environment surrounding the Net. It will be a lot tougher for politicians to demonize cyberspace as a nest of theives and perverts now that many of their constituents are regularly online. Nor can Net users be dismissed as an arrogant elite.
The new American Demographics data shows some surprising trends -- the poorer the user, the more time they are apt to spend online. Why? Because many upscale Americans are Web-surfing vets who have bookmarked their favorite sites, and know how to use search engines efficiently. Nielsen//NetRatings says that Internet users now frequent an average of only 10 sites per month, down from 15 just one year ago. While on those 10 sites, they are digging deeper, reading more pages than they used to.
Another class factor is Net work access -- those who lack the ability to surf the Web at the office (blue collar workers in particular) are more inclined to go online at home. Another socioeconomic difference is that more affluent Net users go online to gather information, access services or data, while poorer Net users are more likely to go on the Net for amusement or entertainment.
The study has enormous political and economic implications. Vast potential new markets are coming online for businesses, despite all of the hysteria about the dropping NASDAQ. These numbers make it more, not less, likely that the Net will soon have an impact on new forms of retailing, and on the political system. It means the entertainment industry has bigger problems than Napster. Issues like copyright and intellectual property will move beyond colleges and into the broad population, as these newcomers are particularly interested in accessing entertainment information and content online.
The much ballyhooed Digital Divide isn't quite bridged. But it appears to be growing inevitably smaller. And like it or not, the Digerati will soon be rubbing elbows with the hoi-polloi.
When cars first came out, they were just toys for the idle rich. The working class walked, rode horses, or took public transportation.
Then, Henry Ford decided to apply production line technology to autos, pay his workers a good wage, and the masses were able to afford autos.
Timewise, comparing computers to autos, I think we're at about 1930. This is well before expressways, suburbs and drivethroughs, if that makes you think.
There is still a long way to go before there socio-economic equality is approached. Predominately white schools in afluent neighborhoods get better funding than others. Better funding means better resources and thus the cycle of inadvertantly suppressing minorities continues. The net is a wonderful tool to breach this gap, but it will require a change in the minds of the financial controllers of the nation, not just retired folks using AOL.
Oh, yes, they will. Those days you could still keep up with Usenet, the days 99% of posts was relevant to the group and the previous message, those days when "Flame" stood for an intelligent, almost literary rebuttal, instead of moronic incendiary gutter-drivel, the days of the Crystal Cave, the days the 'net _was_ free and open, and abuse and crass commercialism non-existent. They will be missed, Jon, until they pry the keyboard from my cold, dead fingers and nail the coffin shut. And I bet many will agree, if maybe not here.
Stefan.
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
demo-crap-hics
That is, the people (demo is from "demos", the people -- Jon evidently had a Classical education) are crap (crap) hics (folks from the sticks i.e. backward). Jon is an elitist member of the Digerati living in New York, you see, and he's just as worried about the on-going "AOLization" of the Net as anyone.
Tell it like it is JonKatz! Right on!
The days of the so-called Digerati are numbered (they will not be missed) as poorer, working-class Americans thunder online in amazing numbers.
This is no bad thing, but there is a mistake in thinking they are 'computer literate' instead of just 'net literate'. These new users will hinder, not help, attempts to fight DMCA etc.. because they will be the first to accept, and unquestioningly use, copyright friendly content viewers/players. And are very succeptable to the suggestion that anyone who deviates from this path must be a 'evil nerd/hacker' to be despised, bullied and then called a coward by lame presidents when they finally snap.
sorry, bad mood today.
EZ
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
I saw a reference to cars, and I think it applies here. Even if everyone has them, the people who get the most from their cars are the people who have the time, skill, effort and money to maintain the cars themselves.
We're already seeing the end of free tech support, especially in the business world, so I think that this maxim will hold true for computers and software as well. Those who build, maintain, and know how to most effectively use their own code, web sites, etc... will always be the ones on top.
To create 'award winning' websites, for example, one must know the ins and outs of inter-connected systems. A good knowledge of HTML, Javascript, any of the several graphics editors, and the minute differences between the major browsers is necessary to create the front-end of a 'good' site. A better than average knowledge of SQL, a scripting language like Perl, PHP, or something more robust and clunky like Java is necessary for the back-end.
Those who say that 'Microsoft FrontPage' can eliminate the barrier between content producers and users have obviously never to use FrontPage to make a sell-able website.
By the same token, Granny just ain't gonna up and start making kernel patches despite the fact that Junior came over and installed Mozilla and StarOffice on her clunky old P2-200 machine. Even if Granny can wrap her aged mind around the interface, which the folks withe Gnome and KDE have been making better and better, you need some real computer skillz to get down and start editing conf files to make your computer do what you want it to.
While I used an improbable example above, it holds true for every OS. To make it perform... to be a 'digerati' so to speak, you gots to gots to gots to know what you're doing.
Trust me. I'm a professional....
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
This will not be the case in most (all?) countries in Europe, because you pay for your phonecalls, and thus being online, per tick or second (yes, even for local calls). So, at least in Holland, it's probably: the poorer you are the less time you spend online, if at all.
How to make a sig
without having an idea
the digerati would certainly be missed were they to disappear, but I think think you parsed that sentence as "those days ... will not be missed". I miss them.
It is a really good thing that more and more people are getting net access, just like it's a great thing that most people have telephones and TVs. There are a lot of benefits filtering up and down from universal access.
But it's also true that elitism can be a very good thing if you are one of the elite. It's nice not to get spam, it's nice to ask questions and get them answered by smart people, etc., i.e. the digerati are great digital neighbors. A lot of that has been swept away by the^H^H^H hoi polloi ("hoi" means "the" in Greek) as we see everywhere and especially on Slashdot. So, yes, universal access is good, and hordes of users supply the add revenue you need, but don't pretend there is something wrong with the digerati, they're great in some unique ways and we'll miss them in every way that they get harder to connect to.
"You can take your Tech Slump and shove it..."
.coms will still go under. The techies will all go back to their old jobs at companies that can actually turn a buck. Sure those companies will be doing stuff with the net, but nothing spectacular.
How does a new influx of internet users change anything? Are they likely to suddenly start buying things from all the dying online stores that do not turn a profit on items sold anyway? Or will they view so many of those ads that do not pay for the bandwidth the site uses? Are you expecting them to all start buying tickets on priceline when the airlines sell the tickets just as cheap?
Or will they all just be a bunch of non-paying content producers/digesters like most of the net users before them.
More users does not mean an end to the internet slump. All of the useless
And in short, everyone will get over the internet, until some huge change (Like easy, cheap, accessible broadband.) comes along to get the net moving again.
Note that these views cast the new numbers as consumers to be entertained and marketed to, rather than as participants in information production. And general Net trends these days seem to support this characterization.
The one thing that I will miss about the "digerati" (as Jon calls them) is that they really believed in the Net as a medium to facilitate our communications among ourselves as a group of peers, as members of communities. It appears that the rush of the masses online is drowning out that vision with the somewhat competing vision of the Net as a delivery vehicle for spoon-fed, one-direction-only, cross-tied Valuetainment (tm) marketing. The displacement of the so-called techno-elite in Net demographics has not come without its own price. But so long as the technical core can continue as niche communities on the Net, I guess we have gained much over the truly one-way media of old.
Sorry to spoil your Illusions but most /. readers are the Digerati.
As people have said before those with the real skills will rise to the top. Even if we are hampered by others. The influx of people who believe WWF is real, people who voted for Bush and people who believe in Microsoft will hamper the internet. These people aren't interested in free speech, the DMCA or gnutella. They want hotmail, MSN Messenger and AOL/Time Warner telling them what to watch and read.
The same thing happened with newspaper. In the mid >> late 1800s newspapers were only read by the educated. Now we have the National Enquirer, everything is ground down to the lowest common denominator.
What we need to do is to get rid of free tech support, break up AOL (spam, adverts and nasty software), and remove all restrictions. Mmm now that's my kind of internet.
-- Be careful what you say. Someone might remind you about it another day.
Saying that the digital divide is disappearing is just another way to sell more banner ads.
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
We used to think that poor people would be at a disadvantage by having to buy dead tree porn.
Now it turns out they not only are buying bigscreen TV's, but PCs too, so they can enjoy e-porn.
Another killer article, Katz.
***
Go ahead and mod me down. If you don't like my opinion or sarcasm that makes me a troll or flamebait, right?
If I want to share information about overclocking, Linux, configuring Apache, or any one of a thousand related topics, the sheer volume of the 2001 Internet makes my search for information that much easier. With the rise in mass Internet culture comes a concurrent rise in the ranks of Geeks.
I can go to Salon and discuss any number of non-Geek related issues, and in many cases the caliber of discussion beats the pants off any Usenet discussions I was privy to in 1994.
Think of it this way - the rise of the CD made audiophiles everywhere panic. Now vinyl is back, there are small, high-quality record manufacturers selling vinyl to afficionados.
Once Budweiser reigned supreme in the aisles of American liquor stores. Hell, maybe it still does - but microbrews are everywhere, and some of them are damned good.
Sure, 99% of American television is total crap, but there are some bright spots (History channel, Discovery, A & E, etc.) that would never have come into existence without the expansion of all the other crap TV.
The Internet is a market, in many ways like any other. Supply will meet demand, as long as the Net remains decentralized, new ideas will flourish. The masses can have their crap, but discerning users can still have quality.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The Net circa 1994 was eye-opening.
Those of us using usenet which was mainly
academic was invaded by AOL and webtv newbies.
The discussions definately downscaled then.
I don't think going from 30% to 90% usage is
going to be as traumatic.
In other words, old people who did not learn about the net are starting to die off, while young people who did learn about it are starting to get old.
The average age is continuing to rise because we are all continuing to get older. (Astonishing, ain't it?)
Yet another example of why statistics are often worthless.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Wait -- you're saying that if education isn't a prize the very few can attain, then many people will become educated, and some of them will produce crap.
Sturgeon's Law, anyone?
The presence of bad art doesn't preclude the presence of good art. If anything, there's more good stuff out there. Of course, you have to be a *critic* (oh, the pain) and judge for yourself what's worthwhile...
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca