Four Essentials for Digital Inclusion Efforts

[Commentary] Over the last few months, I have been speaking with and visiting digital inclusion organizations across the United States to better understand local efforts to address the digital divide. Digital inclusion is a national priority in the United States. High-speed Internet access is widely recognized as a necessity for full participation in today’s society. Employers, educators, businesses, healthcare providers, and civic institutions expect people to have access to computers and broadband connectivity. However, accessible, reliable, and affordable broadband service continues to be out of reach for millions of Americans, many of whom live in low-income households. This gap in adoption of high-speed Internet and the lack of skills needed to use broadband-enabled tools in meaningful ways continue to be significant problems that policymakers, researchers, and practitioners have all focused their attention on for over a decade. In my conversations with and observations of eight digital inclusion organizations, I’ve identified four essential activities that are necessary to help low-income individuals and families adopt broadband in ways that are most appropriate to their personal needs and contexts: 1) Providing low-cost broadband, 2) Connecting digital literacy training with relevant content and services, 3) Making low-cost computers available, and 4) Operating public access computing centers.
[Dr. Colin Rhinesmith is a Benton Faculty Research Fellow. He is also an Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Oklahoma.]