One must not blind himself to the fact that democratic institutions most successfully develop sentiments of envy in the human heart. This is not because they provide the means for everybody to rise to the level of everybody else but because these means are constantly proving inadequate in the hands of those using them. Democratic institutions awaken and flatter the passion for equality without ever being able to satisfy it entirely. This complete equality is always slipping through the people's fingers at the moment when they think to grasp it...

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

The data for this report is based upon the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) of 1998, which gathered data on 48,000 households. The NTIA asked the Census Bureau to devise a "Computer and Internet Use Supplement Survey," which asked questions about household members' use of computers and the Internet. The Census Bureau cross- tabulated the data according to income, age, race, educational level, household type and geographic region. Using these categories, it also determined which people were most likely to access the Internet at a library or community center.

The NTIA acknowledged its statistical analyses were subject to sampling error, as well as "survey design flaws, respondent classification and reporting errors, data processing mistakes and under-coverage." To minimize such methodological mischief, the report stipulates that "The Census Bureau has taken the steps to minimize errors in the form of quality control and edit procedures to reduce errors made by respondents, coders and interviewers." I mention these seemingly dry and laborious methodological aspects at the outset because at the end of this report, the NTIA states: "Good public policy requires a good factual foundation". I agree. The NTIA's concern for methodological rigor is laudable.

Defining the Digital Divide contains three main sections: "Household Access," "Internet Access and Usage" and "Challenges Ahead." Newspapers were most interested in the "Household Access" section, which listed these five findings to illustrate the "breadth of the digital divide today:"

1. "Those with a college degree are more than eight times as likely to have a computer at home, and nearly sixteen times as likely to have home Internet access as those with an elementary school education.
2. A high-income household in an urban area is more than twenty times as likely as a rural, low-income household to have Internet access.
3. A child in a low-income white family is three times as likely to have Internet access as a child in a comparable black family, and four times as likely to have access as children in a comparable hispanic household.
4. A wealthy household of Asian/Pacific Islander decent is nearly thirteen times as likely to own a computer as a poor black household, and nearly thirty-four times as likely to have Internet access.
5. Finally, a child in a dual parent white household is nearly twice as likely to have Internet access as a child in a white single parent household, while a child in a dual parent black family is almost four times as likely to have access as a child in a single parent black household."

Based on these findings, the most significant and highly publicized finding of this report is: "The data reveal that the digital divide - the disparities in access to telephones, personal computers (PCs), and the Internet across certain demographic groups - still exists and, in many cases, has widened significantly. The gap for computers and Internet access has generally grown larger by categories of education, income and race."

In a vague and all encompassing fashion the report then states: "These are just a few of the many disparities that persist across the United States today." After making this claim the report continues: "As discussed below, however, the divide among households with telephones is narrowing. Some gaps for computer ownership (between certain income and education levels) are also closing."

This section concludes with the assertion: "As the Internet becomes a more mature and pervasive technology, the digital divide among households of different races, incomes, and education levels may narrow [author's italics]. This pattern is already occurring with regard to home computers. Race matters less at the highest income level, and the gap is narrowing among households of higher education and education levels." In fact, the report acknowledges that the digital divide between black and white households in the $75,000 or higher income range "has declined substantially." To my knowledge, these significant caveats about the lessening of the digital divide were not highlighted or emphasized in the press accounts of this study.

Why did this happen? Aside from the mainstream press's inclination to emphasize racial and ethnic politics, and not necessarily pay close attention to the subtle nuances of reports of this nature, the report hammers incessantly about the existence of a growing digital divide. A concluding sentence in the "Household Access" section states "Even so, it is reasonable to expect that many people are going to lag behind in absolute numbers for a long time. Education and income appear to be among the leading elements driving the digital divide today. Because these factors vary along racial and ethnic lines, minorities will continue to face a greater digital divide as we move into the next century."

This same theme is highlighted in a subsection entitled the "Expanding Digital Divide" with the comment: "The chief concern with respect to household computer and Internet access is the growing digital divide. Groups that were already connected (e.g., higher income, more educated, white and Asian\Pacific Islander households) are now far more connected, while those with lower rates have increased less quickly. As a result, the gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots' is growing over time. The increasing divides are particularly troublesome with regard to Internet access."

The very next sentence in this report goes beyond the metaphor of a divide to state that "The digital divide has turned into a 'racial ravine' when one looks at access among households of different races and ethnic origins." I am surprised that this metaphor was not seized upon by the media. My hunch is that generally it was not noticed.

The second major section of this report, "Internet Access and Usage," constitutes the first attempt of the Department of Commerce to record and analyze American's use of the Internet. It focuses upon how, where, and why people access the Internet. As one might expect, income, education, race, and gender strongly influence how one uses the Internet.

The digital divide refrain appears in this section as well. While noting that by now one-third of Americans use the Internet either inside or outside the home, there are "still significant discrepancies in access: blacks and hispanics, for example, are less connected anywhere than whites are at home. Those groups with lower access rates at work or home are much more likely to use the Internet at a public place such as a school, library, or community center. They are also more likely to use the Internet to take courses or to conduct job searches than other groups. These and other findings - present and future - will provide an important factual foundation for the sound policymaking needed to ensure socio-economic success in the Information Age."

• First, the government should continue to promote pro-competition policies for IT businesses, so prices of their goods and services will decrease. Lower prices will allow more people to buy computers and connect to the Internet.
• Second, since enhanced price competition is not the "total solution," and because prices will not decrease to levels low enough in the near future for all to afford IT devices, the national government should provide greater Internet access at community centers, such as schools, libraries, and other public facilities - especially in low-income neighborhoods.
• Third, the government should somehow make people aware of the instrumental and economic benefits of using the Internet.
• Fourth, the government should undertake to assure people that their privacy and their children's welfare will not be at risk by using the Internet. (Here the report notes that the Clinton Administration has set forth an Electronic Bill of Rights. I did not know about this and I am sure that I will write about it in Sacra Blue in the future.)
• Finally, there is a need for more research to provide a better factual foundation for the national government's telecommunications policy. In this instance, "appropriate" means a far more egalitarian public policy for telecommunications.

Aside from my observations already interspersed throughout this piece, I want to make a few additional comments. First, the methodological quality of a report of this nature would be enhanced if the Asian\Pacific Islander category were to be disaggregated. There are many different Asian and Pacific Island ethnic groups that should not be lumped together.

Second, this report has, in its view, the following paramount reason for urging more people to acquire basic IT tools and skills, regardless of whichever side of the digital divide they are on: All people need to acquire basic computer and Internet skills if they want to survive economically in a world market place where competition is remorseless and incessant. Commerce Secretary William M. Daley expresses this view in a hyperbolic form, when he writes that the government and the private sector need to "embrace policies and initiatives that bridge the divide. We look forward to working with the private sector to bring the riches [author's italics] of the Information Age to everyone." In this context, I interpret the word "riches" to mean mainly material goods and commodities. So, workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your lowly class chains if you acquire just basic computer and Internet skills, and get on that Internet!

Unless one assumes that IT skills will automatically enhance one's economic status, then it may well be that possessing only basic computer skills and having access to the Internet will not necessarily improve one's economic condition - especially as the digital divide decreases. That is, even if the digital divide dwindles dramatically, resulting in a more egalitarian IT system in the United States, this does not necessarily mean that the result will be a more economically or politically egalitarian society.

This point was alluded to in a fascinating and thought provoking article on July 19 in the Los Angeles Times. The article, written by Gary Chapman for the "Digital Nation" column was entitled Inequality Runs Deeper Than Skills Gap. Chapman notes that the usual response by those concerned about a digital divide is that "education and development of computer skills, are the only answers to rising income inequality. But that may be a delusion." Chapman then cites James K. Galbraith's recent book, Created Unequal, which contends that the real problem is a "crisis in American pay" rather than a shortage in computer and IT skills. Galbraith's book not only challenges conventional wisdom, it challenges the conclusions of the NTIA report.

Another problem with the NTIA report is that it advocates a mechanical conception of IT equality. Aside from noting facts that certain people, or groups of people, use the Internet to send e-mail, look for jobs or take online courses, the report is silent on qualitative concerns and criteria in terms of Internet use - except for protection of children from pornography and citizens from a digital invasion of their privacy. If and when this digital divide is surmounted in a quest led by government and cooperating IT corporations (it is in the economic interest of the latter to participate in such an enterprise), then IT equality might well result. If so, however, will those people and or groups that finally possess the rudimentary physical equipment and basic computer skills to logon to the Internet have achieved an IT equality that is rather shallow? Such equality is surely a necessary, but certainly not a sufficient, perquisite for people to develop their cognitive and intellectual endowments.

What I have said above should not be interpreted to mean that I think acquisition of computer skills and IT knowledge is not desirable. In fact, I think that the IT field does offer real opportunities for many people that want and need to make a viable living, especially those bright and curious people that have been unable to fit into public or private organizations that demand routinely unthinking and character stifling obedience. But I would bet that once such people start learning about IT, their interest would not just be vocational in nature. For these people, the emergence of IT markets might well be their economic life raft. But this is a somewhat different issue than that posed by the digital divide matter.

Finally, I would also like to mention a letter the Sacramento Bee published on August 1 concerning its article about the Digital Divide report. The writer said the Bee article "repeatedly referred to 'white, high- income Americans' who 'predominate in the online world'. However, the charts included in the article showed that in every income bracket, Asian American households outnumber white households in the percentage of Internet users. Why was this predominance of Asian Americans' use of the Internet over all other racial groups not mentioned once in the article?" Alas, Tocqueville's observation cited at the outset of this piece pertains precisely to the status race concerning the pursuit of mere mechanical IT equality. Maybe more will be needed than government programs and corporate sponsorships to get those on both sides of the digital divide beyond mechanical equality in a cybernetic society.