James is certain that the digital divide exist. This quote shows how strongly he feels, "It turns out, however, that these and other attempts to foster a sense of complacency about the implications of the global digital divide are based on a series of conceptual and statistical errors, on the one hand, and a serious lack of familiarity with related literature on the other" (54). He believes that there is not only a international digital divide, but also divides within each country. James also believes that we can not rely on past inventions to determine what the internet will do in the future, "They choose instead to rely on historical analogy" (56). James goes on to argue that the digital divide will not close on its own because older forms of communication don't need literacy skills, and the internet needs literacy skills, and the ability to use technology. Another argument he uses is that when statistics are used in a certain way it makes it seem like the digital divide does not exist. James calls this "Define away the digital divide" (58). His argument is when you group together different groups of people the statistics show a closing of the digital divide. When the group are separated out, then it can be seen that some groups are not closing the divide.
Compaine's argument is on the other side of the spectrum. Compaine uses economics to make the case that the divide is closing on its own. "Rapidly Declinging Costs and Increasing Power of the Handware." In this section, Compaine is arguing that the quality of technology is increasing and the price is decreasing. When a product has decreased in price and improved in quality, then there are people who did not own that product that might now consider getting it. Compaine also shows a group of how past technologies follow the S shaped curve. The users on the internet are increasing at a much faster rate than the other technologies. Comapaine also admits that there will be some gap, but the gap is do to "voluntary non-users" (328). There are people who simply do not what to use a computer no matter what price it is. These people are happier without a computer. He argues that we should only included people who what a computer and can't get it when computing the divide. Compaine also argues that why should we try to close the divide when most people don't use the computer for "news and finance". "Surveys have found that services such as chat rooms (sex is popular), sports, and game playing top the list of activities" (332).
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