Digital Divide/ Technological Shift

New York Times (Oct 21, 1996) 

This 1996 article refers to how the digital divide is financially hurting libraries all across the country but specifically Warren County Library in rural Georgia. Sandra Green (librarian) talks about how the library has on personal computer but it was not linked to any networks and she had a cry for someone to help her figure out the Internet for the sake of the library and how she one day hopes to cross over to keep up with the times. “Ms. Green’s hopes for crossing American’s digital divide, and the hopes of many thousands of libraries and schools, rest with little-known, eight-member board of Federal regulators and state officials.”

Los Angeles Times (Oct. 23, 1960) 

Although I couldn’t find evidence of using the actual term “digital divide” this article titled, “Man Called Future Slave of Machine”, talks about how much faster and smarter computers are than man. It says, “in the time it takes thinking man to wink at a pretty girl, an electronic computer can add 300,000 figures… or subtract them, divide them, multiple them, or compare them.” Although they don't implicitly state the words digital divide it does talk about how man is essentially becoming slaves to technology because it thinks so much quicker and can do so much more than us. 

Chicago Tribune (Oct 1, 1967)

Similar to the Los Angeles Times article, this article also does not use the term “digital divide” but it begins with saying “…the computer has risen to control the destinies of most Americans and much of the world…” and it further goes on to say how that most people do not know how to control or work this technology and its causing a divide in society. The entire article talks about how much the computer can do while at the same time talking about how little people know about this technology. 

Project Muse: You Say You Want a Revolution? Hypertext and the Laws of Media (1991)

This article talks about how impossible it is to fully discuss the cultural renovation happening but it talks about general challenges humanists and information scientists face when trying to reconsider what is happening to society due to technology. 

JSOR: British Medical Journal (2003)

Inside this scholarly article there is a paragraph titled “Closing the Digital Divide” that discusses how reality may not be as smooth as it seems. The author states that, “Communication in countries must be improved through training programs and publicity. But it is also the responsibility of international projects participating in information supply to the developing world to direct…”. 

ProQuest: No Copying (Mar. 10, 1995)

This article talks about how the Clinton administration planned to propose legislation that critics believed would do little to clarify the fair use of copyrighted materials. It uses the term “digital divide” when describing a set of informal meetings arranged by the Commerce Department and how the meetings included people on both set of the divide. This article left me with the clearest view of the difference of jobs on each side of the divide. 

While I started out my search with using the term “Digital Divide” I found out that that term was not used until more modern times. In the past people referred to it as either just a divide or the danced around those words and talked about issues due to technology. By opening up my search to technology differences and adding more key words into the search I found way more articles relating to this idea. The term “Digital Divide” definitely is used to the same way today, however, while in the past they talked about the issue without it having a title, now it has been given a title. The idea that technology has created a divide and the notion that humans don’t quite fully understand technology, isn’t a new a idea, it is clear when doing a search in these databases that it wasn’t until the mid 2000s that people fully used these words when describing this issue. The earliest use I found was in the New York Times in 1996 and even then, that article only used the term once and it was thrown in pretty nonchalantly.