Kami Griffiths

For many of the learners we support, getting online is a powerful milestone. It creates access to jobs, education, healthcare, services, and connection. But digital inclusion is not just about helping people connect to the internet. It is also about helping them develop healthy, informed, and responsible relationships with technology once they are online. That is why conversations about social media use, misinformation, and digital well-being are becoming more important to digital literacy work.

County leaders across the country are investing historic dollars into broadband infrastructure. We talk about first mile, middle mile, and last mile. We map fiber routes. We track deployment. We measure speeds. And all of that matters, but there’s a quiet truth underneath the infrastructure conversation – the last mile does not reach a person. If we are serious about digital equity, we have to go one step further. We call that step the “final inch.” We talk about miles, but digital equity is measured in inches.

When digital systems go live, the cost doesn’t disappear; it shifts. A housing application that once required paper forms now requires an email address, scanned documents, stable internet, password management, and basic troubleshooting skills. If an applicant doesn’t have those things, the burden doesn’t fall back on the agency that built the platform; it falls on frontline social service workers. Case managers become tech support, navigators become digital literacy instructors, and program staff spend precious appointment time resetting passwords and explaining upload buttons.

The internet is an incredible tool: information at your fingertips, communities forming across continents, and endless opportunities to learn and connect. But it’s also a place where truth and fiction can look exactly the same. Scams, misinformation, deepfakes, and AI-generated content are on the rise, and the stakes have never been higher. If we aren’t careful, we can easily share something false, mislead others, or fall victim ourselves. The reality is that nothing online should be trusted at face value.