18 December, 2009

Divide and conquer, the digital divide in Estonia

Praxis (an institute for political research) determined that the barriers in internet usage in Estonia include: financial and emotional reasons and also the lack of skills. (see source)

Digital immigrants have been forced to embrace the internet in every step of the way. Doctors, nurses, teachers, policemen and people from many other fields have been forced to comply with the new rules of submitting information. This shift in methods has been fairly quick, but in many cases painful.

The following videoclip illustrates the severity of the digital divide and investigates a few ideas on how to overcome it.



Although Estonia has a very high rate of internetization and access is granted even in the rural areas (e.g. public libraries, RDSL solutions, WiMax solutions, community WiFi-s etc.), internet is not regarded as a useful tool by the digital immigrants. Reading the online newspapers and such, is what it's mostly used for. So, even by having the technology and the possibilities, people are still unable to overcome the digital divide, they still require training.

The following videoclip offers some insight regarding the economic impacts of the digital divide.

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