The Digital Divide: Economic And Social Inequality

“Digital divide is an economic and social inequality with regard to, access to, use of, and impact of information and communication technologies.”

Digital divide began in the 1990’s and onwards, it is the gap in terms of access to and use of ICT. The divide between countries refers to the inequalities between the individuals, their households, businesses, income, education, race, gender, age, skills, awareness or geographic areas which are usually at different socioeconomic levels poor other demographic categories. The divide between first world countries and third world countries refers to as the global digital divide, examining this technological gap between developing countries and developed countries on an international scale.

Being on the wrong side of the digital divide in today’s world can significantly limit life chances of an individual especially if they are socially excluded. Such individuals in Ireland have not had the opportunity to obtain highly paid, skilled positions in the I.T sector. National and multinational companies around the world are on the opposite side of this digital divide. These firms that Irelands thriving economy depends on are starved of skilled I.T workers because many years ago there wasn’t enough highly skilled graduates to meet the growing demand. And many other workers were being drawn to other sectors such as the manufacturing and service industry because of the high pay. Social circumstances back then didn’t allow other