According to the U.S. Department of Commerce Report "A Nation Online: How Americans are Expanding their Use of the Internet," computer ownership and Internet use are rapidly becoming more equally distributed across households in the United States. The authors of "A Nation Online" use two statistical arguments to support this claim: 1) annual rates of increase for computer and Internet use are increasing most quickly for poor households, and 2) "Gini" coefficients for inequality of computer use are decreasing. These analyses critique these arguments and show that patterns that the authors attribute to decreasing inequality are instead explained by two factors: 1) computer and Internet use is increasing, and 2) households with higher incomes began using computers and the Internet earlier than households with lower incomes.

Reanalyzing these same data using odds ratios indicates that computer ownership and Internet use may actually be spreading less quickly among poorer households than among richer households. If current trends continue, poor households will eventually have the nearly universal levels of computer and Internet use currently seen among richer households, but this "catching-up" could take two decades.

One important question about the digital divide is whether the divide between users and nonusers is continuing to expand or is not. Dynamic answers to this question can only come from panel studies in which the same individuals are followed across time. This study examines such questions using reinterview data from the General Social Survey (GSS), in which 1538 respondents interviewed in person in 2000 were reinterviewed by telephone in the Fall of 2002, using items that most discriminated Internet respondents in 2000.Of the 15 GSS attitude questions, only the three dealing with interpersonal trust were notably related to changes and continuity in Internet use, and of 8 behavior questions only the increases and decreases in TV viewing mirrored the changes found in the static 2000 data.

In the Netherlands, access to IT is unevenly distributed among population groups. As in other countries, males, young people, the higher educated and higher income groups take the lead. This pattern also applies for the possession of a PC and for Internet access at home, as well as for the frequency and diversity of use and for digital skills. These differences coincide with old inequalities. However, the rise of IT also leads to new inequalities. Early adopters of a PC have gained an early advantage, and they have a lasting lead compared to laggards. Early adopters more often have Internet access at home, they have more digital skills, and they use the PC more often. These differences cut across existing social inequalities. This lead by early adopters also applies to differences between early and later adopters with regard to e-commerce and establishing new social contacts via the Web.

This research explores the relationship between Internet use and gratifications gained within the context of the digital divide framework. Analyses within sub-samples defined by age and socio-economic status reveal that there are notable differences in uses and gratifications across subgroups. For instance, those who are young and high in socioeconomic status are most likely to use the Internet to satisfy their motivations strategically and to gain the desired gratifications. They are most likely to engage in specific Internet behaviors-computer-mediated interaction, surveillance, and consumption uses-to achieve the particular gratifications of connection, learning, and acquisition.

In contrast, those who are young and low in socio-economic status were more likely to employ consumptive use of the Internet to attain connection gratifications. Similarly, regardless of age, both low socioeconomic status subgroups were likely to use computer-mediated interaction as a means to gain learning gratifications. Even as gaps in access are closing, gaps in usage and gratifications gained seem to persist.

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Using several nationally representative surveys of American adults, this study tracks gender, education and computer access and use from 1983 to 2000, and Internet access and use from 1995 to 2000. Access to computers and the Internet rose dramatically over this time among both sexes and all educational groups. Increases in home computer ownership were particularly marked among the high-school educated. Otherwise, gender and educational gaps in IT access and use remained roughly stable. Unmarried women least often owned a home computer or had online access. Less-educated women and better-educated men used work computers significantly more often. College-educated men were most likely to have work Web access or email, and men or the well-educated were more likely to use home email or subscribe to a home network service. Education or gender gaps in online time rose from 1995 to 2000, with men or very well-educated individuals increasing their online hours the most. However, women with graduate degree did achieve gender parity in many areas of IT access or use by 2000. Results are interpreted in part as stemming from gender and educational occupation differences. Implications for policy makers and educators are discussed.

UPDATED IN ISSUE 6

This small-scale exploratory study examined whether 74 very young (i.e., 4-8 year olds) children's and their parent's access to, use of, and perceptions regarding computers and the Internet were related to three traditional digital divide constructs: 1) family socioeconomic status (SES), 2) location of access to new technologies (i.e., both home and school access versus school access only), and 3) individual child characteristics (i.e., gender and age). It was found that while Internet access varied by family socioeconomic status (SES), Internet use varied by location of access to computers and the Internet. Parents' attitudes about computers and the Internet varied by location of access and family SES.

On the other hand, children's beliefs were mostly related to their gender or age. Interestingly, parents from low SES backgrounds were less comfortable with and less likely to view the computer and the Internet as educational tools, while their children were more likely than those children from working and middle SES backgrounds to choose the computer when they wanted to learn something new.

The debate about a digital divide between rural and urban America suggests that communities of place still influence how telecommunications and other advanced technologies are used. This article examines the utilization of email and the Web, based on a sample of 471 residents from four rural communities in Nebraska and Wisconsin, in which the study found nearly identical levels and patterns of use across the communities. The findings are discussed in terms of the two variations on the digital divide. The first is a digital divide between rural people at the same place, based on their location within networks of co-workers and friends, which in turn influences awareness, knowledge and eventual adoption of information technologies. The second divide is between rural communities that have growing economies and populations and those that are no growing, based on their locations relative to metropolitan areas and urban consumers. Policy implications and directions for future research designs on the adoption of information technology are also described.

For Americans without access, public libraries function as access intensifiers. At present, because 95% of public libraries maintain an Internet connection, functional access extends to nearly every American without household Internet connectivity. Moreover, 60% of library users also go online. Clearly, without public libraries, a large segment of the American population would find themselves increasingly isolated from the public discourses of this Information Age democracy.

Jefferson and de Tocqueville witnessed democracy in the making. Jefferson's future lawyers and de Tocqueville's backwoods families grasped for connectivity, capability, and content in order to achieve democratic participation. Yet in the present Information Age democracy, gaps in access continue to pose a critical challenge. Toward that end, libraries already function as vital institutions for providing access that is all but universal.