A digital divide is an economic and social inequality with regard to access to, use of, or impact of information and communication technologies (ICT). The divide within countries (such as the digital divide in the United States) may refer to inequalities between individuals, households, businesses, or geographic areas, usually at different socioeconomic levels or other demographic categories.
The divide between differing countries or regions of the world is referred to as the global digital divide, examinig this technological gap between developing and developed countries on an international scale. The term digital divide describes a gap in terms of access to and usage of information and communication technology.
It was traditionally considered to be a question of having or not having access, but with a global mobile phone penetration of over 95%, it is becoming a relative inequality between those who have more and less bandwidth and more or less skills. Conceptualizations of the digital divide have been described as "who, with which charateristics, connects how to what":
Who is the subject that connects: individuals, organizations, enterprises, schools, hospitals, countries, etc. Which characteristics or attributes are distinguished to describe the divide: income, education, age, geographic location, motivation, reason not to use, etc. How sophisticated is the usage: mere access, retrieval, interactivity, intensive and extensive in usage, innovative contributions, etc. To what does the subject connect: fixed or mobile, Internet or telephony, digital TV, broadband, etc.
Different authors focus on different aspects, which leads to a large variety of definitions of the digital divide. "For example, counting with only 3 different choices of subjects (individuals, organizations, or countries), each with 4 characteristics (age, wealth, geography, sector), distinguishing between 3 levels of digital adoption (access, actual usage and effective adoption), and 6 types of technologies (fixed phone, mobile... Internet...), already results in 3 x 4 x 3 x 6 = 216 different ways to define the digital divide. Each one of them seems equally reasonable and depends on the objective pursued by the analyst".
