Digital Inclusion or Digital Exclusion? The Second Order Divide in Taiwan

The study of digital divide has shifted its focuses from unequal access to ICTs to the second digital divide that addresses the inequality resulting from the different ways people use ICT technologies.  The shift to ICT usage is important because of its implication for social inclusion that ICTs play a critical role in all aspects of the new economy and information society.  By including online activities in their measurement of digital exclusion, the studies of Oxford Internet Institute distinguished three levels of digital activities and found that individuals with specific disadvantages appear to be excluded from the digital activities that could help them most.  This study, by employing secondary and longitudinal data of national Individual and Household Digital Divide Survey in Taiwan, aims at examining the barriers of second order digital divide and understanding the social implication of digital inequality in the information society.  The results suggest that despite of the closing gaps of ICTs access across groups and declining usage gaps in basic internet activities (e.g. information searching, communication, entertainment), persistent or widening gaps are found across groups in intermediate and advanced internet activities, such as usages of online finance, e-government and civic engagement.  These results imply that social inequality might accelerate in the information society for those well privileged groups take uneven advantages and benefits from effectively use of online activities in the social, economic, and political spheres, while lack of usage in needed digital resources will make groups that are already socially disadvantaged fall farther behind.  Without proper intervention, the wider array of ICT usages in information society becomes the potent tools to deepen social divides.