The
Digital Divide in the Age of Covid
By Albert B. Kelly
In the past, the struggle for equality and access might have
been focused in certain areas whether education, jobs, health care, or finance,
to name just a few. Up until the Covid-19 pandemic, the question of achieving progress
in any one of these realms was considered largely in isolation from the others
so that solving issues of access and equality in education for example, was
separate and distinct from how to do so in health care, or employment, or
finance.
One thing the pandemic has revealed is that providing a
level playing field in any one of these pressing areas has to start with
providing solid, affordable, and consistent internet access to all residents
regardless of where they live or how much they earn. When the pandemic struck
there was a mad scramble to shift as much as possible online whether working
remotely from home, teaching, telemedicine, banking, or ordering groceries.
That’s fine and good if you have high speed internet and all
the devices needed to survive and even thrive online, but what if you’re at the
bottom of the socioeconomic ladder or you live in a rural area where the
internet providers have decided it is simply not profitable to build out the
infrastructure? When the pandemic hit here locally, the school system did a
good job of providing tablets to our students. The problem is that many hundreds
don’t have internet access in their homes.
I recall an article from a couple of years ago by Colleen
O’dea for NJ Spotlight that reviewed data from the American Community Survey and
at that time, she noted that less than 60% of households could go online in
Bridgeton, Salem, Camden, Trenton, and Perth Amboy. This was in comparison to
some 95% of households able to go online in 17 of the wealthier suburbs in central
and northern New Jersey.
Things have not improved all that much since then. As we
speak, there are 1,983 households in Bridgeton without internet access which represents
31% of our communities’ total number of households. Of Cumberland County’s
roughly 50,000 households, 15% do not have internet access which is highest
among New Jersey’s counties. As for the reasons why, some of it centers on
geography while some of it is about poverty. As for the statewide number,
approximately 10% of New Jersey’s households lack internet access.
But before we can consider specific solutions, it may well
be necessary to adjust our perspectives about the digital divide and internet
access, especially when it comes to the social safety net. We might not have a
problem using taxpayer monies to provide income-eligible families with WIC
benefits (cereal, fruit or vegetable juice, eggs, milk, cheese, and peanut
butter), but suggest that the safety net include high speed internet and you’re
likely to have one hell of a fight on your hands.
Yet one of the biggest problems for many low-income families
trying help their school-age children keep pace is internet access and without
that, no matter how good schools are with providing the technology for students
to take home, there is no ability to do remote instruction. As for the internet
providers, they’ll provide some type of free introductory period, but once that
expires and the monthly fees kick in, families either have to add that cost to their
monthly burden or lose the service.
Specific programs and solutions aside, my point is that we
will have to fundamentally shift our thinking about internet access and all
things digital. Rather than characterizing internet access as a luxury used
primarily for looking at cat videos and shopping on Amazon, using the pandemic
as a backdrop, we need to acknowledge it as essential in the same way that we now
consider plumbing, heat and electric as essential with minimum standards to be
met.
Not for nothing- but during the pandemic, many doctors
wouldn’t see patients’ in the office, but instead would set up telehealth visits
online. How many didn’t get the help they needed because they couldn’t access a
doctor online? Beyond that, how did this gap in care for some impact the health
of the broader community? As we go forward from here, whether it involves
employment, interacting with the court system, or engaging a host of services
public and private, more and more of it will be online. Unless we address the
digital divide made obvious by the pandemic, inequality will increase
dramatically.