Digital Divide Goes Cultural

The digital divide is about more than access to the Internet, say experts. The white Anglo-Europeans who program the Web may set culturally exclusive parameters on the experience. “There’s a push among development specialists to provide more people with Internet connections and the assumption that these new Web citizens can then reap the same benefits as communities who’ve long been online,” according to the Christian Science Monitor. “This may not be the case, however. While few people dispute the value of getting the world online, many Internet experts say that current Web content has little relevance and thus little appeal to those whose lifestyle is worlds away from programmers in the United States and Europe.”