On a Tightrope Without the Net

ON A TIGHTROPE WITHOUT THE NET
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Jose Antonio Vargas]
There exists "two Americas," an America for the rich and an America for the poor. And there are the two Americas online: one that's connected to high-speed Internet -- socializing, paying bills, uploading debate questions to presidential candidates on YouTube -- and one that's not. This is the digital divide, now more than a decade old, a rarely discussed schism in which the unconnected are second-class citizens. In some parts of this so-called Internet ghetto, the screech of a telephone modem dialing up to get online is not uncommon. And with dial-up, YouTube is impossible to use. "I would argue that the digital divide is worse than it was 10 years ago. Back then everyone -- schools, businesses -- was trying to get online. These days every single Fortune 500 company has its employees, its customers and its suppliers connected 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In the meantime, while our students have online access at school, many of them don't have it at home," says Andrew Rasiej, a member of a panel studying universal Internet access in New York, and co-founder of TechPresident, a nonpartisan blog that tracks the online campaign.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/22/AR200707...
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