In “Race, Gender, and Information Technology Use: The New Digital Divide”, Jackson et al. Argues that there has been a digital divide since its inception, but that the divide has grown in both race and gender. Additionally, it looks into the effect computer use can have on academic performance.
This research used 515 children, roughly 12 years old, and found that Caucasian children had started using computers before African American children, females used cell phones more than males, and males played video games more than females. It also looked at the academic performance of each demographic based on computer use and found that children who play video games receive more poor grades than those who didn’t, but interestingly enough, cell phone use didn’t have an effect on academic performance. Overall, the research does suggest that there is a race and gender difference in computer use and that the intensity of computer use can affect academic performance.
I thought this study was interesting and is something that I hadn’t read or thought about before. I found the conclusion that cell phone use does not have an effect on academic performance to be really surprising, especially because most of my time when I’m not studying is spent on my phone texting or watching TikToks.
This is a really interesting topic of discussion, especially because I can relate it to last week’s readings which talked about a digital divide in terms of age. It truly goes to show how even though many of us feel like we are constantly surrounded by technology, there are so many others across the world who don’t share the same experience.
I find these results really interesting, especially that cell phone use did not affect academic performance. One potential explanation for this could be that the time spent on cell phones for kids this age might be less or used sporadically than time spent on video games, which I would imagine kids use for longer chunks of time. Now that apps like TikTok and YouTube are commonly used by kids using cell phones, I am curious if there would be more of an impact on academic performance.
I felt surprised about the results, and I totally agreed with what Julia mentioned above. For me, I addicted to a game on my phone recently, and just can’t control myself to stop playing. That reminded me of an app named Forest, which aims to help people stay focused on the important things in life. Whenever you want to stay focused, just plant a tree. Personally, that’s a useful tool to make me focused on what I need to do.