Digital Divide, Then and Now
It’s hard to imagine that just a few decades back, the term “digital divide” had such a low bar, writes Danny Crichton: “Facility with using computers was determined by the ability to turn it on and log in, a bar so low that it can be shocking to the modern reader to think that a “divide” existed at all.” Sounds almost laughable today, right? Is today’s definition of the digital divide as one between those who know how to write software (“code”) v/s those who don’t? After all, as almost all information is digitized, the need for almost everyone to be able to slice and dice it, to interpret, has increased. Knowing how to use the formulas in MS Excel is one such skill. But we also see the rise of what are called “no-code platforms”: “These tools are designed to make it much easier for users to harness the power of computing in their daily work.” Such platforms do most of the heavy lifting, you just need to point it to your data files, and tweak the settings so the plat...