The Digital Divide - 25/10/2012

The digital divide has changed the we live. It has introduced new lifestyles and has widely affected the whole world. It drastically changed our educational, economical and social systems and has provided us with many benefits. However not every country has benefitited from this and are simply far behind the rest of the world. In this post I'm going to talk about the reasons why that is and why they are on the wrong side of the digital divide.


Detailed map of Africa - Google Images

The least digitally developed countries in the world according to the ITU are: Guinea Biseau, Chad, Mali, Burkino Fasso and Niger. They're located next to each other which suggests that the living standards in that part of Africa are quite bad compared to the rest of the world.




Statistics - www.wrsc.org

As you can see on the graph above, the gap between developing countries like the ones I mentioned and countries in Europe or America, is massive and it's not getting any smaller. This is because people living in Europe are a lot wealthier and therefore can afford to buy new technologies. On the other hand, people in Africa are considered to be one poorest people in the world, and therefore they can't afford luxuries like internet and really any sort of technology. To put this into perspective, an average annual salary in the UK (one of the richest countries in the world) is around £26,500, however the average annual salary in Mali (one of the poorest countries in the world) is just under £1000. This gives you an idea of just how big a difference there is and makes you realise that those people simply can't afford all those luxuries that others take for granted.
On of the biggest reasons for this is the economical state of those countries. They have to face other, much bigger problems like war and survival rather than introducing new technologies.
However economy isn't the only problem. The state of the technological infrastructure is also a big issue because if there isn't a stable electricity supply, then it's very difficult to actually