The digital divide is the unequal access to digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. The digital divide creates a division and inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information Age in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) have eclipsed manufacturing technologies as the basis for world economies and social connectivity, people without access to the Internet and other ICTs are at a socio-economic disadvantage, for they are unable or less able to find and apply for jobs, shop and learn.
The digital divide measured in terms of bandwidth is not closing, but fluctuating up and down. Gini coefficients for telecommunication capacity (in kbit/s) among individuals worldwide
A laptop lending kiosk at Texas A&M University–Commerce's Gee Library
Image: Digital Divide Hilbert 2011
Information and communications technology
Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications and computers, as well as necessary enterprise software, middleware, storage and audiovisual, that enable users to access, store, transmit, understand and manipulate information.
Today's society shows the ever-growing computer-centric lifestyle, which includes the rapid influx of computers in the modern classroom.
OLPC Laptops at school in Rwanda
Representatives meet for a policy forum on M-Learning at UNESCO's Mobile Learning Week in March 2017.