The rapid development of technologies has led the current population to face barriers and imbalances regarding their usage. Digital inequality is a consequent outcome of technology’s increasing influence on humans’ political, economic, and educational life. Some social groups have met various conflicts and inequalities because of the different usage of the products of digital progress. Such inequalities occur because of the limited access to studying digital technologies and fewer skills possession for successful interaction with technological resources (Quan-Haase, 2021). However, the roots of this issue are deeper and can be divided into three categories: social, economic, and cultural.
Social reasons for the problem are based on age differences of people facing the constantly changing technology world. Some individuals meet the digital progress in their older age and struggle to conform to innovative transformations. Adolescents and young humans accept ongoing progress easier, comprehend the innovations, and successfully insert them into their everyday life. Economic inequalities take root from the financial abilities of humans, which are also diverse and inconstant. For instance, some people cannot afford updated technologies, and they have limited access to job advertisements available online.
As a result, they stay unemployed or choose jobs that require different skills and stay cut off the online job opportunities. Such events impact the national economy and stagnate the progress of the country regarding the use of technologies and productivity at work. Cultural inequalities are tied to various perceptions of technologies by different countries. For example, in China, there is no access to global networks and social media, and Chinese citizens can use international social platforms only whilst traveling abroad.
Reference
Quan-Haase, A. (2021). Technology and Society. (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.