In Race, Gender, and Information Technology Use: The New Digital Divide the authors, Fitzgerald, Harold, Jackson, Kolenic, Von Eye, and Zhao, take a closer look at whether the intensity of IT use and how it is used has any effect on academic performance among children. The study had a total of 515 children, 172 African American children and 343 Caucasian children. 50.3% of the participants were male and 46.2% were females. The mean age of these participants was 12 years old. The researchers conducted this study over a 3 year period.
The results of this study were meant to expose the digital divide that technology creates not only between races but also with gender. The study defines digital divide as the “gap between those who had access to new information technology (IT) and those who didn’t.” The authors make sure to specify that the gap they are referring to is not a result of access to IT but a gap in the intensity and nature of IT use.
One key finding that I found interesting was that young African American boys were the least intense users of the Internet whereas African American females were the most intense users of the Internet. Another interesting finding was that females, no matter what race, were the most intense cell phone users. Researchers found that children who had been using IT for significantly longer periods of time had performed better in school that those children who were not accustomed to technology. Due to the fact that Caucasian children were typically using IT longer than African American children, one can infer that white students might have the upperhand in the digital divide gap.
I found this research to be very interesting. Last week we talked about how the lack of access to technology could have an impact on an individual’s health and now we see it could also have an impact on the academic success of children. My mother is a teacher and throughout the pandemic lockdown she would often tell me about the students who had no computer or internet connection to log onto zoom calls. The students who were experiencing these issues were put at risk of falling behind.
Bridget, this discussion is really interesting and presently in our world, being behind in the IT world can have a large effect on one’s life. The digital divide is really powerful and I am curious to see how large that gap is currently and how it has changed over time. One thing I noticed was that the author specified the digital divide is not due to IT access. I would have to disagree with this statement and I think access can have a huge impact on one’s expertise/usage of technology.