Digital equity is everyone having access to the power of technology as it is what we use in our daily lives as if it’s a necessity to live. Digital divide is the gap between people who have and don’t have access to it. According to digitalinclusion.org, digital equity is a condition in which all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy, and economy; digital divide is the gap between those who have affordable access, skills, and support to effectively engage online and those who do not.
Digital equity and digital divide relate well upon each other as one is a struggle and one is the goal. The goal for communities is to reach digital equity, therefore everyone would have the equal opportunity to participate in all things. Although it is 2022 there are still many communities in the digital divide phase. There have been too many disadvantages as digital divide is in place causing others to work 2x harder or miss out on opportunities as having no access to technology. It has been a much better improvement with this phase of digital equity, but it is still a long way till it reaches the final goal. Even if communities achieve this digital equity, there’s still a problem with having the knowledge on what to do with technology. Having access to technology is the first step as you will need to know how to use technology to its potential in order to benefit from it. Feel free to read more here https://www.nassp.org/top-issues-in-education/position-statements/digital-equity/.
Governments are providing this infrastructure of digital equity to communities as technology is needed in order to do almost everything nowadays. Providing that infrastructure helps a lot as it establishes a base on digital equity, but as I mentioned above it doesn’t help if you have access but don’t know what to do with it. It needs to foster the knowledge of technological use in societies after so that having access to technology will actually mean something. Doing so will actually mean something when saying digital equity as everyone having access to technology with the knowledge on how to best utilize it. As https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/digital-divide-and-social-media-connectivity-doesnt-end-the-digital-divide-skills-do/ talks much more in depth about it.
