Alpbach, August 2015
Vertical and Horizontal Digital Divides – How ICT influences Societies
– A New Perspective
Univ. Prof. Dr Sarah Spiekermann (WU Vienna) Univ. Prof. Dr. Johannes Hoof (Univ. of London) Christian Reimsbach-­‐Kounatze (OECD, Paris) The “Digital Divide” is classically defined as an economic and social inequality in people’s
access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICT). OECD
(2001) for instance refers to “the gap between individuals, households, businesses and
geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to
access information and communication technologies (ICTs) and to their use of the Internet for
a wide variety of activities”. 1
The classical debate around the Digital Divide presupposes that it is important for every
country and every person to have access to and use digital services, because “digital is better”
{Renner, 2011 #1716}. The social and economic benefits to be derived from the spillovers or
positive externalities often associated with diffusion and greater use of ICTs and the Internet
is often indicated as the main (policy) rationale for addressing the digital divide. Such benefits
include for instance the ability to find information/knowledge almost immediately (i.e.
through Wikipedia or Google), to facilitate transactions (i.e. money transfer, governmentcitizen relationships) and to communicate in a richer and more instantaneous way.
As a consequence of the positive presumption of digitalization studies are being conducted,
which investigate the degree to which countries and regions are already digitized and seem to
grow as a result (i.e. in terms of their gross domestic product, GDP). The availability and
high-level impact of Internet connectivity and the bandwidth of this connectivity are being
analyzed and governmental investment programmes are launched to increase and improve
broadband access where it is still not available, and to further ICT and broadband adoption.
The analysis of the digital divide does not stop at country and region comparisons. It also
looks at the degree to which citizens within a region are hooked up to the Internet and to what
extent they then actually use ICTs including the Net. A social digital divide is being observed
between the elderly and the younger generations in terms of usage intensity as well as those
who are better educated and those who are not. The uneducated seem to use the Internet for a
smaller number of applications and mainly for entertainment purposes and hence are assumed
to derive less educational value from it (see Figure 1).
1 OECD (2001), “Understanding the Digital Divide”, OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 49, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/236405667766 1 Figure 1. Factors influencing the variety of activities per users in selected countries, 2013 Education gap
All individuals
55-74 year-olds
Number of activities
9
R² = 0.9488
Tertiary graduates
NORISL
DNK
NLDSWE
FIN
7
LUX
DEU GBR
FRA
5
TAUT
BEL
VK
3
KOR
Individuals with low or no formal
education
1
90
100
Internet uptake (%)
Source: OECD (2014), Measuring the Digital Economy: A New Perspective, OECD Publishing, Paris,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264221796-en, based on Eurostat, Information Society Statistics and ad-hoc data
tabulation by KISA, May 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888933148252
Those people who have high bandwidth Internet access and use it for knowledge purposes are
thought to be better off. A hierarchy has been established in political dialogue between those
people being on top of the digital world and those who are left behind. Because there is a
hierarchical assumption present in today’s Digital Divide dialogue I want to refer to this
dialogue as a discussion about a “vertical” Digital Divide.
Classical vertical Digital Divides
The vertical Digital Divide is like an invisible line or barrier that discerns those people who
have access to ICTs and the Internet and those who don’t, between those who use them
smartly and those who don’t. The former are on top of those who lag behind. Figure 1
visualizes the traditional vertical Digital Divide in an exaggerated form illustrating the
common prejudice that the more advanced part of the world accesses the knowledge of this
world thought ICTs, while those lagging behind literally still “talk to their flowers”.
2 Figure 1: The vertical Digital Divide(s) we currently implicitly presume
So far scholars working on the Digital Divide seem to have mainly described its various
forms of existence. They have also tried to relate countries with and without ICT to see ICTs
impact on economic growth rates.
However, whether they are correct with their positive assumptions is not yet verified. An open
area of research is what causal effects ICT really has (all other factors held constant): For
instance it might be important to understand at the national level:
•
•
•
•
•
Does digitalization cause more job security and employment?
Does digitalization cause higher productivity? (in knowledge work? in manufacturing?)
Does digitalization cause better service quality?
Does digitalization cause better democracy and higher political stability?
Etc.
At the individual level:
• Does digitalization lead to a better work/life balance?
• Does digitalization cause higher quality of life?
• Does digitalization lead to better social ties?
• Does digitalization lead to better educated citizens?
• Does digitalization lead to higher autonomy?
• Etc. 3 It is an important endeavor to understand whether we can reasonably argue for (and
scientifically proof) the unique causal influences of the level of digitalization of a nation or
social group on these relevant effects (dependent variables). As we engage in this analysis we
might as well find that digitalization is less influential than we think, it may be even more
influential than we think or it may affect economies and people in a different way than we
expect.
We would hypothesize that digitalization does not put any nation or any person ahead or on
top of anyone else per se unless its capabilities are wisely used. We need a balanced culture
of ICT deployment, use and media literacy. Digitalization is not an end in itself. In contrast, if
we don’t use ICTs wisely, we might end up with an unexpected vertical Digital Divide that
flips the positive-hierarchy assumption upside down. That is, highly digitalized households,
companies and nations might end up strangled in an inflexible and dehumanized environment
in which many of the indicators above turn against them.
A particular threat in this regard is that digitalized households, companies and nations do not
have control over their ICT based communication and information flows. A lack of control
over data flows leads to a new type of vertical Digital Divide where the capacity to actively
exploit the economic and political potential of ICT is not evenly distributed. To give an
example: the capacity to collect and analyze large volumes of data, has put a few firms and
nations in the position to gain better insights (knowledge) about a larger population of highly
digitalized households, companies and nations. With this knowledge these firms and nations
gain better insights and more capacity to influence and control. This asymmetric
agglomeration of data leads to power shifts: (i) from individuals to organizations (incl.
consumer to business, and citizen to governments); from traditional businesses to data-driven
businesses given potential risks of market concentration and dominance; (iii) from
governments to data-driven businesses, where businesses can gain much more knowledge
about citizens (and politicians) than governments can and (iv) from lagging economies to
data-driven economies.
The discussion of the vertical Digital Divide makes plain that we need to get a much better
understanding of the true economic, political, social and cultural implications of IT as well as
how these implications play out differently depending on the way in which IT is built and
controlled. Only when we understand these IT-dynamics are we able to judge on whether it is
really ‘better’ for a nation, firm or household to be heavily digitalized and under what
conditions this is the case.
A new View on Digital Divides: Horizontal Digital Divides
We have seen so far that the traditional Digital Divide sees nations and groups separated from
each other because of different degrees of access to and control over ICT. This separation is
vertical in the sense that it is generally assumed that those nations and groups who have
access and control over ICT have an advantage over those who don’t.
We now want to hypothesize that in highly digitalized nations ICT has the potential to create
new and additional forms of divide that are hardly discussed today; that is horizontal Digital
Divides. Horizontal Digital Divides denote the phenomenon that ICT has the potential to
separate us - human beings - from the natural world around us and from each other. It does so
in multiple ways, with the most diverse effects, at different levels of intensity and for the most
diverse reasons. Figures 2a and 2b contain some examples of the horizontal Digital Divide.
4 Figure 2a: People film the concert
instead of watching/experiencing it
Figure 2b: People focus on their IT
devices instead of humans around them
Philosophically and psychologically, it is highly interesting to study our ‘urge’ to behave in
the ways displayed in figures 2a and 2b. Why do people want to capture moments instead of
experiencing them? Why do they disrupt precious moments with others and pay attention to
their devices more than to the people around them? And in the long-term: What are the effects
of such behaviors on human beings, their growth as persons and society at large?
What is relevant for understanding the meaning of “horizontal” Digital Divide is that people
don’t experience a moment together any more. Those people who feel the groove of the
concert in figure 2a and don’t use ICT have a different experience than the ones who film it.
The filmmakers are to some extent isolated from their analog peers. The young woman in
Figure 2b has a different ICT usage pattern (i.e. does not use it during dates) and therefore
experiences the date differently than the man. In the end, the two people will not only have
different memories of what happened during the date, but ICT (here the mobile phone) got
literally between them.
There are many more examples for horizontal Digital Divides than the ones shown in figures
2a and 2b. Just as in the vertical Digital Divide we can observe that different people use ICT
differently and have access to different digital resources (i.e. different apps, different
configurations, different personalized news and information). This asymmetric information
access and styles of using ICT can drive them more and more apart and into isolation from
each other. Their knowledge, mental skills, social habitus etc. are likely to develop differently
over time depending on how they use their tools. In the end they are horizontally divided from
each other; all living in their own information world. Figure 3 illustrates the idea of this
horizontal Digital Divide. Three people see the same natural phenomenon. Two see it filtered
through IT, one without filter. The two ICT users see it differently, because their IT services
give them different information on the same phenomenon or because they have developed
different styles of using ICT. As a result, all of them are alone with their experience.
Philosophers like Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900 -2002), argued that true human communication
must be accompanied by an open horizon; a horizon that includes the possibility of a ‘fusion
of horizons’ (German: “Horizontverschmelzung”) This underlines the importance for people
to share experiences without preset limitations. He acknowledged the fact that our
understanding of the world is always biased and shaped by culturally mediated prejudgments
(German: “Vorurteil”); filters some sort? But ICT dynamics now seem to accelerate the
emergence of communication bubbles without horizons that make us overvalue what is
nearest to us.
5 Figure 3: Illustration of the horizontal Digital Divide
Two very important drivers of horizontal Digital Divides are technically induced. One divide
is created through (1) “filter bubbles” . The other is created through (2) interruptive ICT. Both
of these technical phenomena and their effects are described in more detail hereafter.
The horizontal Digital Divide created by Filter Bubbles
The term “filter bubble” has been coined by Eli Pariser (Pariser, 2012). It refers to the fact that many information services, such as the social network service Facebook or the search engine Google pro-­‐actively filter the information that is provided to us. More precisely, they personalize the information that is displayed to us. Google has been reported for instance to use 57 different variables to decide what search results are shown to an individual (Halpern, 2011). Facebook is said to only display news to us on our Facebook Walls that match our political and personal preferences and expectations. This is, because lulling us into a self-­‐confirming stream of messages makes us feel happy and comfortable and this is what social network services naturally want. As a result though, each person online starts to live in his or her own information world, which serves as a narcistic mirror of personal preferences. Of course traditional media have always formed the perceptions of their readers or viewers. As a result different viewpoints could always persist, enriching the public sphere with vivid discussions. (Political parties revolved around such diverging views going into opposition to each other.) However, today’s ICT creates a micro-­‐segmented and extremely individualized information world that is tailored to individuals instead of larger groups. Figure 4 is a little illustration of this type of horizontal divide (based on figure 3). 6 Figure 4: Horizontal Digital Divide created through Filter Bubbles Why is the horizontal Digital Divide created by filter bubbles important? As people are isolated in their worldviews due to the firmly “divided” information they receive, consent on the world (i.e. on political, environmental or social phenomena) and deliberative democratic decision-­‐making becomes increasingly difficult. “The public space” which emerged in the 18th century is endangered. As Jürgen Habermas has argued,
the ethical, political, scientific and cultural structures of communication of modern societies
are heavily dependent on this open space. The consequences of an erosion of these structures
would be unpredictable. Julie Cohen outlines how “IT configured citizens” (p. 1913 in (Cohen, 2012)) move within “filter bubbles” that make them conform to political and ideological ideas (p. 1917 in (Cohen, 2012)). A quoted example of the effect of filter bubbles is how Republicans and Democrats in the US have gained very different perceptions about climate change between 2001 and 2010. While in 2001 49% of Republicans and 60% of Democrats agreed that the planet was warming, this relatively similar perception of reality has fallen apart. Exposed to different news feeds only 29% of Republicans believed in global warming by 2010. In contrast, Democrats’ awareness of climate change increased in the same time period. By 2010 70% of Democrats believed in global warming. Furthermore, filter bubbles generated by IT do not always (only) reflect our personal preferences, but can be the explicit result of techno-­‐social engineering aimed at influencing human behavior. Facebook’s experiment on massive-­‐scale contagion conducted in 2012 – based on the manipulation of content presented to more than 689 000 Facebook users – provides evidence about the capacity of ICT operators to influence the behavior of users.2 While the use of ICTs can help to “nudge” people toward socially desirable (better) decision making and behavior (e.g. resource efficient consumption of resources), there is a risk however that this techno-­‐social engineering may (unintentionally) alter individuals’ preferences (Lessig, 1999; Frischmann, 2014). This combined with the vertical digital divide can reinforce information asymmetry and thus the shift in power highlighted above.
2 The experiment in particular showed that “emotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our own emotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-­‐scale contagion via social networks” (Kramer et al., 2014). Kramer, A.D.I., J.E. Guillory, and J.T. Hancock (2014), “Experimental evidence of massive-­‐scale emotional contagion through social networks”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America (PNAS), Vol. 111, pp. 8788-­‐8790, www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full 7 The horizontal Digital Divide created by interruptive ICT
The “Attention Divide” is what is displayed in figures 5: IT can pull our attention away from
our natural environment and distract us. Why is that important? We know that artificially
created ‘virtual realities’ can never replace the common sense realism of our everyday world.
However, the proliferation of ICTS seems to weaken our cognitive capacities to engage with
the real world that we inhabit. In doing so, IT divides people from experiencing the world
directly and from encountering each other. It distracts our focus on the world; our undivided
attention to and interaction with real phenomena. Figure 5 illustrates this phenomenon.
Figure 5: Horizontal Digital Divide created through Attention Interruption or Distraction Why is the attention divide important? Attention is one of the most valuable resources we have as human beings. It is vital for survival, for raising healthy children and cultivating strong friendships, for learning, for creating knowledge and to develop ourselves as well-­‐rounded individuals. “What you focus on also affects who you are” (Gallagher, 2009). However, thousands of advertising messages now compete every day for our attention via television, e-­‐mail, the Internet, public space, mobile handsets, landline phones, electronic games and cyberspace. On average, employees send and receive around 120 e-­‐mail messages a day (excluding spam) (Radicati, 2014). People interrupt themselves constantly, tempted by social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately, empirical evidence suggests that interruptions harm knowledge work performance. Interruptions lower intellectual capacity (Ahmed, 2005), cause time loss and errors (Speier et al., 1999, Speier et al., 2003), and reduce employee satisfaction (Kirmeyer, 1988, Zijlstra et al., 1999). Around 40% of tasks that are interrupted are not resumed (Czerwinski et al., 2004, O' Conaill and Frohlich, 1995). As a result, one study estimated that the downtime associated with interruptions costs companies $588 billion per year in lost productivity in the United States alone (Goldes and Spira, 2005). Summing up Rigorously thinking about Digital Divides means to stop comprehending digitalization as a positive end in itself and merely counting who has most access to most ICT services at highest speed and usage intensity. This is shortsighted thinking. Instead we need to truly understand how and why our societies develop differently with more or less ICT, how ICT fosters (and inhibits!) human growth as individuals and as societies and where 8 it improves (and endangers!) our understanding of the world we live in. As we gain more knowledge about the dynamics of Digital Divides we become ready to build ICT and engage in political and education programs that help us harvest the benefits of ICT while consciously avoiding its pitfalls. References AHMED, T. 2005. Abuse of technology can reduce UK workers' intelligence -­‐ HP calls for more appropriate use of 'always-­‐on' technology to improve productivity. HP Press Release, April 22nd, 2005. COHEN, J. E. 2012. What Privacy Is For. Harvard Law Review, 126, 1904-­‐1933. CZERWINSKI, M., HORVITZ, E. & WILHITE, S. A diary study of task switching and interruptions. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2004), 2004 Austria, Vienna. ACM Press, 175-­‐182. FRISCHMANN, B.M. (2014), “Human-­‐focused turing tests: A framework for judging nudging and techno-­‐social engineering of human beings”, draft paper, 22 September, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2499760 GALLAGHER, W. 2009. RAPT -­‐ Attention and the Focused Life, New York, Penguin Books. GOLDES, D. M. & SPIRA, G. 2005. The Cost of Not Paying Attention: How Interruptions Impact Knowledge Worker Productivity. New York: Basex Inc. HALPERN, S. 2011. Mind Control & the Internet. The New York Review of Books. New York. KIRMEYER, S. L. 1988. Coping with competing demands: Interruptions and the Type A pattern. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 621-­‐629. LESSIG, L. (1999), Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, 30 November, Basic Books. O' CONAILL, B. & FROHLICH, D. Timespace in the workplace: Dealing with interruptions. ACM Conference of Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2005), 1995 Portland, OR. ACM Press, 262-­‐263. PARISER, E. 2012. The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think, London, The Penguin Press. RADICATI, S. 2014. E-­‐Mail Statistics Report, 2014-­‐2018. Paolo Alto: The Radicati Group Inc. SPEIER, C., VALACICH, J. S. & VESSEY, I. 1999. The influence of task interruption on individual decision making: An information overload perspective. Decision Sciences, 30, 337-­‐360. SPEIER, C., VESSEY, I. & VALACICH, J. S. 2003. The effects of interruptions, task complexity, and information presentation on computer-­‐supported decision-­‐
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