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This study examines how individuals across income classes encountered payday lenders' appeals online and what their smartphone use reveals about their psychological reactions to these messages. We utilized novel Screenomics data, comprehensive sequences of screenshots (N = 13,498,584) collected every 5 seconds from the smartphones of lower-income and higher-income adults (N = 65) in U.S. metropolitan areas for 2 months. While examining a person's everyday smartphone use, we observed 103 natural exposures to advertisements of payday lenders who had in the past generated consumer complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We describe how individuals encountered payday loan ads through various digital channels despite the ad bans of major technology companies. We employed a quasi-experimental design to test for differences in participant actions immediately before and after ad exposure. Multilevel analysis results show that exposure to payday loan ads led to notable changes in the lower-income individuals' smartphone use. Directly after seeing the ads, the lower-income individuals engaged with content that contained fewer future-oriented words, switched between applications more frequently, and avoided content that evoked negative emotions. Such effects were especially pronounced among the lower-income individuals who lacked the support of social safety nets, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) and unemployment benefits. In contrast, there were no changes noted in smartphone use among the lower-income individuals receiving social safety net assistance and higher-income individuals. These findings highlight the nuanced yet impactful psychological consequences of digital experiences, an underexplored aspect of digital inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theory, the gig economy facilitates flexible, digitally mediated employment arrangements. Why do some people wind up doing gig work while others do not? We focus on how online participation inequalities, and Internet use experiences and skills, shape the composition of online gig workers. Specifically, we analyze a unique survey data set from a national sample of 1512 U.S. adults that includes information about background attributes and behaviors, detailed measures of Internet experiences and skills, as well as questions about whether study participants had completed specific steps necessary to becoming a task worker on two prominent gig economy platforms: Amazon Mechanical Turk and TaskRabbit. We use Bayesian regression to compare four stages of gig economy participation. Workers who participate in the gig economy tend to be younger, more highly educated, and more skilled Internet users. This implies that the gig economy increases labor market stratification and that digital participation inequalities compound labor inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of disadvantaged communities are likely to value public internet access for leisure and socializing in addition to internet uses more traditionally recognized as beneficial to socioeconomic capital. To date, little research exists to examine how people in poverty manage their leisure uses of the internet and to what effect on their wellbeing. This study draws on three years of ethnographic fieldwork with unstably housed adults seeking public computer access in northside Chicago. Observations and interviews were conducted at a public library and nonprofit agency where participants relied on public computers partially or fully for internet access. Participants valued public internet access for passing time off the street through entertainment and social media, in addition to more instrumental uses. They frequently translated online leisure activities into social interactions with those around them at access sites, helping facilitate important social bonds by watching videos together, singing along to music, and discussing online content together. The policies and settings of each access site differently enabled the social benefits of digital leisure. The findings contribute to digital inequality research on the leisure divide by illustrating the outcomes for social wellbeing and the importance of local insitutions in shaping leisure uses and outcomes. The value that disadvantaged internet users place on digital leisure and its potential social benefits calls for a reconsideration of how activities are prioritized in inclusion scholarship and efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of older adults integrate the Internet in their daily life. Although undertaking a greater range of online activities offers enhanced opportunities to live a self-determined and socially connected life, understanding of the breadth of Internet use is still limited. We address this gap by examining how individual factors representing inequalities between groups of older adults in society are associated with the breadth of their Internet use. The study analyzed survey data collected in 2017 from older adults living in a city in Germany (N = 1,136, age 65–90 years). The group of Internet users comprised of 69.0% (784) of participants, exhibited high levels of autonomy in outdoor activities (87.8%), and reported, on average, 4.92 online activities (SD = 2.31, range 1–8). Linear regression analysis showed positive associations for perceiving higher levels of behavioral control (PBC) in using digital technologies, being male and younger, and holding an academic degree. No associations were found for having medium level of education, living together with someone, and reporting better health. These findings highlight that despite the increased percentage of users, digital inequality regarding the range of online activities prevails. This inequality impedes subgroups of older adults to prepare for future situations in which online activities could substitute outdoor activities that might not be possible anymore. Interventions for these subgroups should emphasize digital skills that facilitate engagement in diverse online activities covering various purposes and life domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing several important gaps in the digital inequality literature, this study examines digital inequalities in public housing communities. Using a door-to-door survey of a hard-to-access population, it demonstrates how three distinct yet interrelated layers of digital inequalities – access, skills, and expectations for digital inclusion programs – are shaped by social inequalities and reinforce one another. First, it develops a multimodal view of access inequalities from the disconnected to the hyper-connected. Second, it highlights the expectation gaps on expected changes that digital inclusion efforts would bring. Results show deep, layered gaps by access, skills, and expectations for digital inclusion programs within disadvantaged communities. The access inequalities contribute to the skill inequalities, which in turn amplify the inequalities in expectations for digital inclusion programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to have a massive impact on people's lives. However, the system's complexity is also likely to make it an important topic of investigation in digital inequality research. Those who have the skills to use the IoT to its full potential and gain maximal benefits have a technology at hand that will have the power to increase their (already privileged) positions. Prerequisites for and impacts of user (consumer) engagement with the Internet of Things are becoming increasingly recognized as an important study area. To support related research and policy development, there is a need for more theoretically informed, reliable, and valid instruments that are able to measure what people do and gain from the IoT. In the current contribution, we focus on a key component in digital inclusion debates: digital skills. The development of the IoT Skills Scale (IoTSS) started with examining existing digital skills theory which led to a first instrument. We used a threefold approach to test the validity and reliability of the latent skill constructs and the corresponding items: cognitive interviews, followed by a first survey of IoT skills. During the final step, we examined the consistency of the IoT skills scales and their characteristics when measured in second survey among a representative sample survey of Dutch Internet users. The result is a theoretical and empirical consistent framework consisting of two types of IoT skills: operational and data IoT skills and strategic IoT skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As hiring processes have increasingly moved online, having better digital skills could play an important role in successful job seeking. However, digital inequality suggests that people use the Internet in different ways with varying levels of skills raising questions about who is most likely to be able to search for jobs online, including on social media. This paper examines online job searching, including the role of digital job-search skills in the process. Results show that sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., age, race, education, and income) as well as online experiences, being a social media user, and having higher digital job-search skills relate to online job-seeking behaviors. These findings highlight the presence of digital inequalities in online job searching including differences by social media experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of social network sites and online communities has offered new possibilities for older adults to stay socially connected and older adults comprise a growing user group of social media. This paper examines the relationship between older adults' online social engagement and social capital based on a national survey of adults aged 60 and over. Findings show that older adults who engage more often in specific online social activities (i.e., asking questions on social media, looking at photos of family members/others) enjoy greater bridging social capital (both in offline and online contexts) than those who do so less often. Furthermore, Internet skills moderate the relationship between online social engagement and social capital. Specifically, older adults with greater Internet skills benefit relatively more from engaging in specific online social activities more often with respect to online bridging. The paper discusses the implications for digital inequality scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sharing economy platforms have grown to offer various commercial opportunities to a growing but still limited user base. We conceptualize engagement in the sharing economy as a form of online participation, and apply a digital inequalities perspective to examine the social stratification of commercial sharing. Based on the Internet access model established by Van Dijk, we analyze the effects of social structural antecedents on various access stages. Initial studies indicate that the sharing economy is characterized by second-order consumption, addressing user wants more than needs. Therefore, we draw on Bourdieu to complement Van Dijk's model through a habitual perspective. Analyzing data collected in a survey of more than 6000 individuals from 12 European countries, we find that while social structural antecedents are critical in explaining initial usage of sharing services, their effect on repeat usage is less evident. Some indicators, such as education and social capital, even negatively relate to usage intensity. In turn, we find that a habitus of innovativeness and community-orientation significantly bolsters initial usage, but materialism, rather than material requirements, characterizes higher levels of engagement in the sharing economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algorithms are an increasingly important element of internet infrastructure in that they are used to make decisions about everything from mundane music recommendations through to more profound and oftentimes life changing ones such as policing, health care or social benefits. Given algorithmic systems' impact and sometimes harm on people's everyday life, information access and agency, awareness of algorithms has the potential to be a critical issue. We, therefore, ask whether having awareness of algorithms or not corresponds to a new reinforced digital divide. This study examines levels of awareness and attitudes toward algorithms across the population of the highly digitized country of Norway. Our exploratory research finds clear demographic differences regarding levels of algorithms awareness. Furthermore, attitudes to algorithm driven recommendations (e.g., YouTube and Spotify), advertisements and content (e.g., personalized news feeds in social media and online newspaper) are associated with both the level of algorithm awareness and demographic variables. A cluster analysis facilitates an algorithm awareness typology of six groups: the unaware, the uncertain, the affirmative, the neutral, the sceptic and the critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) is more complex and abstract than previous information and communication technologies as there are many connections occurring. New challenges for users arise from increased amount of data, decisions made automatically, less visibility and more ambiguity, and magnified security and privacy risks. There is a fair chance that only a selective group will benefit, making it important to study IoT from a digital inequality perspective. The current study focused on health, home, and security related IoT by conducting a survey among a representative sample of the Dutch population. The study was guided by resources and appropriation theory. IoT attitudes and material access as well as educational and income differences play an important role. Those with higher education and those with higher incomes have more positive attitudes and are the first to actually buy IoT. This also means that they are the first to develop the required skills and to engage in a diverse IoT use. The results suggest that to make the IoT attractive for larger parts of the population, clear terms of use and user-friendly IoT should be an important objective. Stimulating positive attitudes towards IoT will increase the likelihood of IoT ownership, development of IoT skills, and, eventually, a wider diversity of IoT use. Policies should aim to stress the potential outcomes IoT has to offer and should promote transparency and disclosure of how personal data is used as well as better privacy, security practices and regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social support can play a critical role in the development of Internet skills. Research on support-seeking for digital media use has primarily considered informal sources such as family and friends, and formal sources such as people employed to provide assistance. Yet, people may also seek support online. Social network sites and other online communities are often used to ask questions on a wide range of topics from both friends and strangers. Drawing on a survey of young adults aged 25–26, we find that online question-asking, although used less frequently than informal and formal support, is a relevant source of support, which expands users' available resources and has the potential to improve Internet skills. Results show that Internet skills and social capital explain differences in support-seeking behaviors among young adults informing our understanding of how inequities in social support, and ultimately digital inequalities, manifest themselves in this realm of Internet use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the rapid rise of mobile-only users, we investigated the digital inclusion process through smartphones. By using Chile as a case study, a country that has strongly promoted mobile connections to address internet access gaps, we compared mobile-only and computer users in different dimensions of the digital inclusion process, including digital skills and differentiated uses of the web. By relying on a face-to-face national representative survey, the results showed that smartphones represent an opportunity to access the internet for those who traditionally lag behind. However mobile-only use does not necessarily lead to a more complete digital inclusion process because it was related to lower levels of skills and less diverse types of uses of the web compared to those people who also use the computer. Also, skills partially mediated the association between access device and types of uses of the web, which suggests that the differences by access device partly occur because people have greater chances to develop skills when accessing the web through computers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital inequality is a burgeoning field of study across disciplines, yet few papers address categorical digital inequality in cross-national samples. Using the only available cross-national data on access to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) disaggregated by gender from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), I add to existing literature by examining factors associated with women's unequal access to mobile phones across 51 countries. The largest of such samples, the ITU data demonstrates that the type and levels of gender inequality in mobile phone use are not consistent throughout countries. In fact, the distribution is quite variable, from incorporating a small-sample of nations where women have marginally higher access, to sub-samples close to parity, to a larger sub-sample where women are at a substantial disadvantage. Using Quantile Regression Methods to assess these variations, I test how major gender and international development theories inform inequality patterns. My findings suggest that women's wellbeing, as measured by their access to modern contraception (i.e., reproductive autonomy), overwhelmingly promotes women's relative access to mobile phones, regardless of preexisting levels of access. Other perspectives like the growth imperative and world polity theory show some staggered associations along the distribution that remain substantively inconclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While all students enter college with varying levels of digital skills, those from rural areas may face extra challenges because their own skills and those of their pre-college networks may be underdeveloped. Without some type of intervention, digital deficits can perpetuate further educational disadvantages. We developed an online learning community (OLC) in two sections of an introductory college course and integrated collaborative learning into students' weekly activities. Regression analysis of survey data (N = 373) shows three impacts: access to social support is associated with higher skill assessment and improvements in digital skills; rural status is associated with a clear and significant disadvantage in digital skill assessment; and that involvement in an OLC contributed substantially to improvements in digital skills. We conclude with limitations and considerations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital inequality is a burgeoning field of study across disciplines, yet few papers address categorical digital inequality in cross-national samples. Using the only available cross-national data on access to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) disaggregated by gender from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), I add to existing literature by examining factors associated with women's unequal access to mobile phones across 51 countries. The largest of such samples, the ITU data demonstrates that the type and levels of gender inequality in mobile phone use are not consistent throughout countries. In fact, the distribution is quite variable, from incorporating a small-sample of nations where women have marginally higher access, to sub-samples close to parity, to a larger sub-sample where women are at a substantial disadvantage. Using Quantile Regression Methods to assess these variations, I test how major gender and international development theories inform inequality patterns. My findings suggest that women's wellbeing, as measured by their access to modern contraception (i.e., reproductive autonomy), overwhelmingly promotes women's relative access to mobile phones, regardless of preexisting levels of access. Other perspectives like the growth imperative and world polity theory show some staggered associations along the distribution that remain substantively inconclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a strong push to increase American students’ interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic (STEM) careers. However, minority and female students remain underrepresented in the STEM fields. Therefore, it is essential that we continue to examine the potential factors that both incite and dissuade STEM interest. We apply Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT) to examine STEM attitudes of predominantly low-socioeconomic status minority elementary school students over the course of a computing intervention. Furthermore, we integrate the digital inequality mental access conceptualization of ‘emotional costs’ into the EVT model in order to predict students’ negative STEM attitudes. Data are from a large-scale computing intervention that took place in a primarily minority, high poverty, urban elementary school district located in the southeastern USA. Results indicate that positive expectancies for success and subjective task values predict students’ positive STEM attitudes. Emotional costs toward technology primarily predict negative STEM attitudes. Students’ expectancies/values and emotional costs may have a ‘push-and-pull’ effect on the formation of STEM attitudes. This study successfully links digital disparities to STEM disparities by integrating the digital inequality concept of emotional costs. Practically, we conclude that future computing interventions should increase students’ academic-related expectancies and values while also minimizing their emotional costs in order to address both digital and STEM inequalities. Theoretically, we conclude that broad conceptualizations of emotional costs should be included in future studies to help explain negative attitudes/motivations toward STEM-related topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research examines an understudied facet of digital inequality: how digital inequality impacts identity work and emotion management. The analysis reveals how unequal access to digital resources shapes how well youths are able to play what I call theidentity curation game.Digital resources determine youths’ ability to succeed in this game that is governed by three implicit rules: (1) constantly update or be sidelined, (2) engage in constant reciprocated identity-affirming interactions, and (3) maintain a strategy of vigilance to remove traces of failed identity performances. This article draws on Symbolic Interactionism and pays particular attention to Hochschild’s theory of emotion management. Drawing on these frameworks, the findings reveal how under-resourced youths experience connectivity gaps that disrupt their ability to play the identity curation game, as well as the resulting emotional consequences. Under-resourced youths manage distinctive negative emotions arising from connectivity gaps that hinder their digital identity work, as well as engaging in distinct kinds of suppressive work to police their own emotions including longing, envy, shame, frustration, and stigmatization. In making these linkages, the research reveals the cascading effects of digital inequality among youths where constant connectivity is the sine qua non of social inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous academic studies highlight the significant differences in the ways that young people access, use and engage with the Internet and the implications it has in their lives. Trying to address such inequalities is complex, and the outcomes of digital inclusion schemes are rarely uniformly positive or transformative for the people involved. Therefore the hope of such schemes that if sufficiently empowered, incentivised and aspirational, the disadvantaged can use access to technology to transform or transcend what Bourdieu [1992.The logic of practice.Studies in philosophy and education. Cambridge: Polity Press; New Ed edition] calls their ‘class of conditions’ (p. 53) is largely misplaced. This gap between expectation and reality demands theoretical attention. Focusing on a two-year digital inclusion scheme for 30 teenagers and their families in one area of England, this qualitative study analyses why, despite the good intentions of the scheme’s stakeholders, it fell short of its ambitions. Instead, our theoretical analysis explains how the neoliberalist systems of governance that are increasingly shaping the cultures and behaviours of our Internet service providers and schools cannot solve the problems they create. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on the idea that Internet use can be conceptualized in terms of depth (frequency) and width (differentiated) uses of the Web, this study explored how socio-demographic factors and digital skills are related to frequency and types of Facebook use among young adults. It used a face-to-face representative survey conducted in the three main urban areas of Chile among a sample of 18-to 29-year olds. The results found that men and more educated young people had higher levels of skills, confirming that the so-called ‘digital natives’ are not a monolithic group. They also revealed that digital skills did not predict frequency of Facebook use. Furthermore, lower educated young people tended to use Facebook more frequently. Although these results go against the long-established digital divide research, traditional digital gaps emerged when types of use were analyzed. While more educated and skillful individuals tended to use Facebook for informational and mobilizing purposes, socio-demographic factors and skills did not make a difference in Facebook use for social purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on a qualitative scoping exercise in three British prisons, this article discusses digital inequalities experienced by prisoners and the potential opportunities that digital media in prisons offers for offender rehabilitation and resettlement. As they are currently denied access to online and social media that most of us take for granted, physically cut off from their communities, and unable to communicate with family and friends in ways that have become normal in society, we argue that prisoners experience profound social isolation and constitute one of the most impoverished groups in the digital age. Our results show that prisoners display high levels of both curiosity and enthusiasm as well as fear and reservation toward Internet-enabled technologies, depending on age and gender as well as the length of their sentence. On release from prison, they are not only faced with prejudice and poorer job prospects than the average citizen due to their criminal record, but their digital exclusion during incarceration may have compound effects and lead to supercharged digital and social exclusion. We argue that secure access would be highly beneficial to prisoners who pose a low risk to society, especially during the rehabilitation and release phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on the digital divide suggests that seniors continue to lag behind in access to the Internet, digital skills, and engagement in various online activities. Much of the research, however, gains insight from large-scale survey research and neglects to examine the challenges and opportunities that digital seniors, those who are connected, experience in their everyday use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). We employed the theoretical lens of ICT use in the context of everyday life to inform this study. Twenty-one digital seniors (60 +) took part in interviews about how ICTs influenced their routines and practices such as news consumption, library use, information seeking, and reading. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using grounded theory. Three key findings emerged. First, digital seniors are developing new practices and routines around their ICT use; these are novel and emerge out of ICTs’ affordances. Second, digital seniors are creatinghybrid practices, where they seamlessly combine traditional habits with new ones emerging from ICT use. Finally, digital seniors are recreating existing practices with digital means, i.e. the digital enhances or sometimes even replaces traditional practices. We find that agency is central to our understanding of digital seniors’ adoption and use of ICTs, they critically consider various options, and make choices around their preferences, convenience of use, and affordability. For digital seniors, ICT use is not a binary because they want to have the flexibility to choose for themselves under what circumstances and for what purposes the use of ICTs is appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent studies on social networking sites (SNSs) reveal that users’ social background is not a significant predictor of participation in this type of social media. The broad user bases of Facebook and other social media platforms also appear to suggest that social background no longer affects access to SNSs. A small number of studies even claim that in the participatory web environment, social content is more likely to be created by non-elites, such as lower-income people or racial minorities [Blank, G. (2013). Who creates content? Stratification and content creation on the Internet.Information,Communication & Society,16(4), 590–612]. Nevertheless, engagement with SNSs also reproduces inequalities, for example via class- and ethnic-based ‘self-segregation’ [boyd, d. (2012). White flight in networked publics? How race and class shaped American teen engagement with MySpace and Facebook. In L. Nakamura & P. A. Chow-White (Eds.),Race after the internet(pp. 203–222). New York, NY: Routledge]. Drawing on a large-scale survey (N = 2327) and a set of 56 interviews with Italian teenagers, the current paper explores the persistent influence of socio-economic background and cultural capital in adolescents’ use of SNSs. The research findings show that, although structural variables inevitably influence their participation in social media, teenagers from ‘lower-income’ families are more enthusiastic about the communication and relational features of these sites. In contrast, their peers from ‘elite’ families focus on the capital-enhancing opportunities offered by SNSs and display a critical stance that leads them to limit their social activities on these platforms. Overall, the results suggest that SNSs are not exempt from digital inequalities, but nonetheless provide novel opportunities to lower-income teenagers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Older adults, comprising a population segment more vulnerable to social isolation during the late life stages, are more likely to be excluded from the benefits of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as well as from the focus of ICT research. Addressing this research gap concerning the currently fastest growing sector of ICT users this study centers on the disparities regarding older adults’ ICT access and use. Because the effects of ICTs cannot be uniform for all users, the digital inequalities older adults experience might have different influences on their social lives when compared to other populations that have been studied in the previous literature. Drawing on surveys from 1780 older adults, ages 60 years and older, residing in six suburbs in the Chicago area, this research links older adults’ digital inequalities to their social well-being. We demonstrate that while socio-economic status remains the major factor affecting their quality of life, social and instrumental ICT uses can also contribute to their well-being in varied and unexpected ways. From these results, we draw implications for the study of digital disparities by examining how the impacts of ICTs vary by differential uses and different age groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates emerging differences among young people in their judgements about the benefits and risks of internet use. To ascertain how and why diverse values and practices emerge, and their implications for young people's careers and relationships, we examined influences on youth internet use over a five-year period between adolescence and early adulthood. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a subset of young Australians (n = 20) who participated in the longitudinal study Social Futures and Life Pathways (‘Our Lives’), in the year after high school (aged 17–18 years). Participants were strategically selected using survey data on their academic and social internet-use patterns five years earlier (aged 12–13 years), enabling us to explore the origins, attributes, and outcomes of their distinct use pathways. We found that interviewees' ‘digital socialization’ involved different ways of reconciling technological developments with their ideas about the pathway to maturity and status recognition. Young people who grew up with limited internet access learned to view task-oriented use, such as schoolwork, as the only worthwhile use of this access. Academically driven students instead valued such use as a more productive and refined choice when compared to other social and recreational practices. Those with better, less regulated access were less dismissive of these non-educational uses, and were more confident and pragmatic about online opportunities and risks as they approached early adulthood. Our findings highlight the need to support young people in developing the capacity to manage, rather than avoid the risks of the internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the egalitarian rhetoric surrounding online cultural production, profound gender inequalities remain in who contributes to one of the most visited Web sites worldwide, Wikipedia. In analyzing this persistent disparity, previous research has focused on aspects of current contributors and the existing Wikipedia community. We draw on unique panel survey data of young adults with information about both Wikipedia contributors and non-contributors. We examine the role of people's background attributes and Internet skills in participation on the site. We find that the gender gap in editing is exacerbated by a similarly significant Internet skills gap. Our results show that the most likely contributors are high-skilled males and that among low-skilled Internet users no gender gap in Wikipedia contributions exists. Our findings suggest that efforts to understand the gender gap must also take Internet skills into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prevailing approaches for studying relations between digital media and social inequalities focus on ‘differentiated uses’ of digital media. Since differences in access do not fully account for differences in use, many scholars have proposed that differences in digital skills, or related concepts such as literacies, help explain the discrepancies. By implication, interventions aimed at equalizing digital access and skills should help ameliorate gaps in use and hence lessen social inequalities. The contention of this article is that these well-intentioned efforts oversimplify and distort relations between digital media and social inequalities. My argument is based on an in-depth ethnographic study of the launch of a well-resourced public middle school in New York City that attempted to reform public schooling in inclusive ways in light of the rise of digital media. I argue that while the intervention helped mitigate differences in access and skills, it did not ameliorate differences in purportedly beneficial uses. Moreover, and paradoxically, the intervention helped remake some of the very social divisions that concern digital inequality scholars. To overcome this seeming paradox, I propose an alternative approach for studying relations between digital media and social inequalities, one focused on ‘differentiating practices’. Such an approach directs attention toward the role of digital media in negotiations over legitimate participation in the social practices that make and mark social difference in situ. Doing so offers scholars a way to situate their accounts of differentiated use while gaining clarity about when and how digital media contributes to the production of privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on original data from one-on-one and focus group interviews with high school students in California, this article reveals how consistent access to or deprivation from informational resources influences information synthesis for scholastic work. In order to hold motivation constant, the article delineates three kinds of Striver students: Endowed, Entrepreneurial, and Empowered. The article examines the ways in which Strivers obtain information relevant to schoolwork from digital media, non-digital media, and knowledgeable individuals. Findings reveal linkages between access to informational resources and the internalization of a self-reliant or other-reliant stance towards information synthesis. Endowed-Strivers who enjoy synergistic access to informational resources adopt a self-reliant information habitus. By contrast, Entrepreneurial-Strivers with few home resources engage in linear strategies that facilitate an other-reliant information habitus. The third group, the Empowered-Strivers, benefits from school-based interventions that give them multiple information channels. Such IT interventions can act as substitutes for the rich informational resources enjoyed by Endowed-Strivers at home. Access to IT resources and teacher modeling at school make it possible for Empowered-Strivers to develop a self-reliant information habitus with regard to schoolwork. In showing how a favorable school-based information opportunity structure can compensate for inadequate informational resources at home, the analysis reveals the ways in which informational inequality is both created and sometimes overcome. By illuminating the relationships between access conditions, information opportunity structures, and types of information habitus, the article shows how synergistic use of informational resources plays a critical role in larger digital inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study relies on the 2010 Canadian Internet Use Survey to investigate differences in people's access to the internet and level of online activity. The study not only revisits the digital divide in the Canadian context, but also expands current investigations by including an analysis of how demographic factors affect social networking site (SNS) adoption. The findings demonstrate that access to the internet reflects existing inequalities in society with income, education, rural/urban, immigration status, and age all affecting adoption patterns. Furthermore, the results show that inequality in access to the internet is now being mimicked in the level of online activity of internet users. More recent immigrants to Canada have lower rates of internet access; however, recent immigrants who are online have significantly higher levels of online activity than Canadian born residents and earlier immigrants. Additionally, women perform fewer activities online than men. People's use of SNSs differs in terms of education, gender, and age. Women were significantly more likely to use SNSs than men. Interestingly, high school graduates had the lowest percentage of adoption compared to all other education categories. Current students were by far the group that utilized SNSs the most. Canadian born, recent, and early immigrants all showed similar adoption rates of SNSs. Age is a strong predictor of SNS usage, with young people relying heavily on SNSs in comparison to those aged 55+. The findings demonstrate that the digital divide not only persists, but has expanded to include inequality in the level of online activity and SNS usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to assess the implications of the social use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for online political participation. Past research investigating the link between ICTs and political participation has emphasized the informational use of ICTs, overlooking their communication-enabling potentials for facilitating political talk in interpersonal spaces and subsequently, political participation in public domains. To understand further how ICTs as a means of communication may relate to political participation, we use data from the 2008 Taiwan Social Change Survey (N = 1076) to examine the relationship between the Internet and online political participation by looking at online media use for social interaction and engagement in civic talk online. Our findings suggest that interpersonal factors such as online civic talk and media multiplexity are positively associated with online political participation. Individuals who discuss politics with their friends via the Internet and those who use more types of online media for social interaction are more likely to contact legislators and elected officials directly via the Web and articulate their political thoughts in online public spaces such as forums, blogs, and websites of news media. We further offer an assessment of the findings' implications for political participation, political communication, and digital inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theiCSarticle, ‘Who Creates Content?’ (April 2013), Blank contends that digital production inequality depends on the type of online content in question. Using 2010 survey data from the UK, he uses a principle component analysis to cluster content activities into three types and conducts a logistic regression analysis with an eye toward social class. He finds some levels of inequality but also finds parity with two of his content categories. These findings differ from a substantial body of literature from the United States. Rather than explaining these differences between Britain and the United States with substantive and theoretical reasons, Blank attempts to find fault with the methodology of this existing literature. In this comment, the author shows how Blank's analysis does not reveal as much digital production equality as he claims it does because of his misinterpretation of causal paths of inequality, as well as problems with his operationalization of online content, which conflates Internet activities and online content. In the process, the author explains why Blank's resulting critiques are misguided. Finally, to explain better his unique findings and to help advance the field of digital inequality, the author suggests discrepancies between Grant's findings and previous research may be attributable to differing study populations: Internet users versus the general population; the age differences of respondents; the timing of the studies; and between-country variations. At stake in this debate is the reproduction of social class stratification with digital technology and content creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of the Internet for health-related purposes and whether this usage is part of larger pattern of health-promoting behaviors, or health lifestyle. Pierre Bourdieu's concept ofhabitusprovides the key theoretical concept that links health lifestyle and the digital inequality framework to explain how social conditions (i.e. social status and quality of Internet access) influence attitudes and behaviors. Path analysis is used to examine the relationship between key endogenous variables on attitudes, health behavior, health status, and online health-related activities, while controlling for demographics and other factors. Data comes from the National Cancer Institute's 2007 Health Information National Trends Survey. The results demonstrate that online health behaviors can be usefully conceptualized as elements of health lifestyle. The combination of health lifestyle and digital inequality provides a broader theoretical framework that highlights the importance of social conditions to influence people's Internet habitus and routine health-promoting behaviors. The combination of health lifestyle and digital inequality provides a useful theoretical framework for future research investigating persistent social disparities in health and the potential for the growing reliance on information and communication technologies to contribute to socially patterned health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blogs were the original poster child of digital democracy as an egalitarian public forum. Some scholars have challenged this theory of equality based on race and ethnicity, but no empirical analysis of American adults has questioned a class-based divide over time. Blogs, as a form of digital content production, appear to mirror other technological innovations in which a small elite group of users begin to incorporate them in their daily living after which the innovation spreads quickly to the general population, as with basic Internet access. However, the author argues that unlike this consumptive practice, blogging fits into a productive framework that requires more resources. Furthermore, most studies on blogging and inequality, in general, derive from samples of college students, which make it difficult to understand class issues. By drawing on 13 national surveys of American adults from 2002 to 2008, this study incorporates class differences and finds that an educational gap in blogging persists, rather than narrows, even among people who are online. Race and ethnicity do not have a relationship with class in accounting for the inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School systems in the United States are increasingly integrating computers into the classroom. Yet, we know little about the factors that determine successful adoption, use, and attitudes toward the computers. The City Council of Birmingham, Alabama is the first in the United States to provide One Laptop Per Child XO laptops to all students in first-fifth grades in the Birmingham City School System. The purpose of this study is to present the survey results examining factors that are related to XO laptop usage and attitudes among fourth- and fifth-grade students in Birmingham City schools. The results indicate that factors vary depending upon the type of use or attitudes being examined. Teachers' use of the XO laptop in the classroom is a primary factor that is related to the frequency of XO activity use and students' attitudes toward the XOs, while teachers' ability is related to the hours of XO usage in school. These results highlight the importance of having well-trained teachers who embrace using the XO laptop in the classroom in order to facilitate positive attitudes toward technology and its use among students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While American teenagers are often presumed to be uniformly 'wired', in reality, segments of the youth population lack high-quality, high-autonomy internet access. Taking a uniquely holistic approach that situates new media use within respondents' larger lifeworlds, this study examines the effects of digital inequality on economically disadvantaged American youth. Analyzing primary survey and interview data, findings reveal the roles played by spatial-temporal constraints and emotional costs in creating disparities in usage and skills among differently situated respondents. A close examination of the interview material discloses a dramatic divergence in the informational orientation or habitus internalized by respondents with more- and less-constrained internet access. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of skhole, the work outlines the differences between the playful or exploratory stance adopted by those with high-quality internet access and the task-oriented stance assumed by those with low-quality internet access. Analysis reveals that those with low-autonomy, low-quality access enact a 'taste for the necessary' in their rationing of internet use to avoid what they perceive as 'wasteful' activities with no immediate payoff. The article closes with an eye to developing a theory of information habitus, a potentially invaluable concept in future research on digital inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the prevalence of creative activity and sharing in an age when the barriers to disseminating material have been considerably lowered compared with earlier times. The authors use unique data to explore the extent to which young adults create video, music, writing and artistic photography, as well as the prevalence of sharing such material online. Findings suggest that despite new opportunities to engage in such distribution of content, relatively few people are taking advantage of these recent developments. Moreover, neither creation nor sharing is randomly distributed among a diverse group of young adults. Consistent with existing literature, creative activity is related to a person's socioeconomic status as measured by parental schooling. The novel act of sharing online, however, is considerably different by gender with men much more likely to engage in it. However, once internet user skill is controlled for, men and women are equally likely to post their materials on the Web. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing spread of the Internet holds much potential for enhancing opportunities for people with disabilities. However, scarce evidence exists to suggest that people with disabilities are, in fact, participating in these new developments. Will the spread of information technologies (IT) increase equality by offering opportunities for people with disabilities? Or will a growing reliance on IT lead to more inequality by leaving behind certain portions of the population including people with disabilities? In this paper, the authors draw on nationally representative data regarding Americans' Internet uses to (1) identify the extent to which people with disabilities are embracing use of the Internet; (2) how their use of the Internet compares with the Internet uses of the rest of the population; (3) how having a disability relates to and interacts with other social statuses (e.g. socioeconomic status, age, gender) with regard to Internet use; and (4) what explains these trends. They draw on representative data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census of the United States to answer these questions. It is found that people with disabilities are less likely to live in households with computers, are less likely to use computers and are less likely to be online. However, once socioeconomic background is controlled for, it is found that people with hearing disabilities and those who have limited walking ability are not less likely to be Internet users. This research enables a deeper understanding of both the use of the Internet by people with disabilities and the spread of new IT more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the US, community technology centers (CTC) are a policy response to facilitate the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) to citizens who might otherwise lack access to these resources. The implicit assumption guiding CTC initiatives is that access to ICT will improve the life chances of the individuals who become involved in these centers. It is, however, prudent to empirically examine this assumption because the case for community technology interventions is somewhat weakened if the benefits of ICT use fail to accrue to those who are disadvantaged. Informed by Bourdieu's theory of reproduction, this study of a CTC initiative in an inner-city community explores the role of culture in reproducing digital inequality. Digital inequality reflects not only disparities in the structure of access to and use of ICT; it also reflects the ways in which longstanding social inequities shape beliefs and expectations regarding ICT and its impacts on life chances. While this initiative is considered successful in the sense that it provided access and basic computer literacy to residents lacking these resources, it represents a technology-centric fix to a problem that is deeply rooted in systemic patterns of spatial, political and economic disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]