Revisiting the Digital Divide: Contributions from Older Internet Users

One among the most prominent current debates regarding digitalization and social inequality is the one pertaining to the “digital divide”. Research shows that this divide is a social rather than technologically driven phenomenon since socio-economic inequalities are the main determinants of it. Since the internet and new technologies are increasingly woven into the fabric of everyday lives the divide is a reality even in the most developed economies. The debate brings attention to particularly socially vulnerable groups such as older people. This paper draws from focus group data (n=30) and focuses on older people (60+) who are active internet users in Sweden, a country that tops the lists of the most developed countries when it comes to Network Readiness Index (NRI). The paper points to the various patterns of internet usage that structure older users’ everyday life pertaining to the access and skills necessary to obtain different forms of information and to the maintenance of their social networks. We argue that these usage patterns can be perceived as contributors to the reproduction of already existing inequalities based on socio-economic factors. Argued hereby is also that as long as one is capable to conform to the imperatives that digitalization builds upon then old age need not be perceived as an obstacle to participation in the increasingly digitalized society.