Subject areaProcess and organisation
The digital divide is the gap between people who can use digital technologies and those who are left out.
The causes add up: access to a reliable network, devices, digital literacy (the ability to use the tools and to assess what you find there) and, in some countries, government restrictions and censorship.
The gap changes shape with every technological leap. Partly narrowed by the spread of the internet and mobile phones, it returns whenever a new technology demands new skills: those who fall behind on Web 3.0 or on artificial intelligence risk a new form of exclusion. For a company the issue is internal before it is social, because a digital process that part of the workforce cannot use produces two parallel organisations.
An example
The case that follows is constructed, because the term does not yet appear in the English articles. A manufacturing company moves holiday requests and shift planning to an online portal: office staff use it from day one, while part of the shop-floor workforce, with no computer and little practice, keeps going through the shift supervisor. The gap closes with shared terminals on the floor and short training, working on access and skills together.
broader entriesthis entry and narrowertwo levels down← up · → down
Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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