Richard Joyce
Sociology 022 – In the Facebook Age – Spring 2010 – Dhiraj Murthy

At the beginning of this course, I said that my favorite website was YouTube.  In retrospect, I think that my favorite site is actually Pandora, but I still like YouTube.  Sometimes I watch it on my own to entertain myself or to listen to music, but it also serves a social function.  Watching YouTube videos is an activity that I can share with people who I do not have many interests in common with.

In the introduction to Andrew Keen’s, “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture”, Andrew Keen compares individuals who post content on the Internet to Huxley’s “infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters”, saying that the result is an “endless sea of digital mediocrity”.   I was not indignant to read Andrew Keen’s bashing of YouTube or Jenkins’ urging to look beyond the site for the roots of phenomenon of participatory culture.  At first, Andrew Keen came off as seeming snobbish, but after watching a video of an interview with him (on YouTube!), I came away with an appreciation for the fact that you can be critical of the way a technology or institution alters society and still take advantage of its affordances.

After taking Principles of Microeconomics last fall, I can see how the paradigm shift in information media is a source of concern, especially to the old-school types in the entertainment/journalism/music industry.  Supposedly if property rights of digital goods (music, movies, news stories) are not respected, the economic incentives for production of high quality material deteriorate.  Jack Black agrees…

Still, is economic profit really the only motivation for the release of creative works? Is there not just as much talent on YouTube as in Hollywood? True, it  may be found at considerably lower densities, but personally I find more value in some of the material that I find on YouTube than in some of the movies provided by Hollywood.  For example, I was introduced to this animated video based on Costa Rican colloquialisms and the infamy of directions given by ticos.

Also, YouTube challenges the notion of a market because it is a space where lots of consumption and production occurs, but videos are not exchanged for money.  Jenkins likens this to the “gift economy where goods are circulated freely for shared benefit rather than sold for profit.”  Digital information is a non-rival good, meaning that your use of it does not detract from my use of it.

Jenkins wrote that, “YouTube seems to ofer an inexhaustible supply of user-generated content.  Yet, this very plentitude (McCracken, 1998) may discourage us from pondering what materials are not to be found there” (p.125).  I believe that this extends beyond YouTube into the Internet in general.  What is slipping through the cracks in terms of online content?  What happens when we assume that if something is not online then it does not exist? This then ties into issues of digital divides, because the ability to post YouTube videos or blog is not distributed equally, both within the USA and at the international level.

With the surge of the Internet, there is much speculation about transformations in the realm of politics and democracy.  Authors such as Papacharissi and Dahlberg criticize the claims of “Net enthusiasts” about the democratizing potential of the Internet.  Can the Internet approach the much-idealized model of the public sphere, a space where people come as equal citizens to debate issues of societal concern, ultimately reaching a consensus or public opinion?  Although both Dahlberg and Papacharissi expressed doubt over the reaching of political unity through cyberspace, there have been multiple situations since the birth of the Internet in which it has been used as a powerful tool for social activism.  A key distinction should be made between social activism and democracy.  While social activists often have democratic goals, they do not necessarily represent the majority faction in a particular political arena.  For example, their cause may be related to the interests of an oppressed minority group.

The emblematic Zapatista movement of Southern Mexico has served as a posterchild for Internet activism.  Manuel Castells mentions the Zapatistas briefly his article “An Introduction to the Information Age” In this paper, I will explore the context of the Zapatista movement, and how the Internet was used to advance their cause, and the general benefits and limitations of online activism.

The Zapatistas are a politically organized group of oppressed indigenous people, mainly campesinos, in Chiapas, Mexico that has struggled to gain autonomy (though not total separation) from the Mexican government (Cleaver p.164).  In 1994, the Zapatistas army invaded various areas of Chiapas on the same day of the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement.  Even before the uprising, the Internet had been used as a means of communication for anti-NAFTA groups (Cleaver 1998, p.627).  The timing of the revolts attracted attracted attention, sparking the creation of an even wider web of anti-neoliberal organizations (Cleaver 1998, 622).  These groups, which had varied goals, sympathized with the Zapatistas and created a significant Internet presence for this localized, indigenous struggle in Mexico.  The Internet was used in several ways to strengthen the Zapatista’s resistance against the Partido Revolucionario Institucional.

Information about the state of affairs in Chiapas spread rapidly in cyberspace, and became The Zapatista’s online presence not only allowed reporting on their situation that was not restricted by the “state control of the Mexican mass media” (Cleaver 1998, 625), it created international pressure for the Mexican army not to respond violently to the Zapatistas’ demands (Rucht 50, 2004).

A group of Zapatista sympathizers called the Electronic Disturbance Theater utilized a tactic reminiscent of Mafia Boy’s stunt.  They performed a virtual sit-in, a form of “hactivism” which clogged several servers and websites (including the Mexican president’s) using software called FloodNet.  Although, this act of sabotage involved both offline and online participation, it was centered on a virtual space, and its effects were geographically more widespread than those of many physical sit-ins (Meikle, 2002).  Virtual sit-ins have proved to be successful means of attracting mainstream media attention and thus gaining visibility for causes that would otherwise be overlooked (Meikle 155, 2002).

The Internet can be tremendously useful for planning and coordinating events that occur offline, and the Zapatistas and their supporters capitalized on this.  In 1996 and 1997, Zapatistas and other activists met in mass in Chiapas and Spain to talk about their goals and ways of collaborating (Cleaver 1998, 630). This undoubtedly strengthened connections that had been formed online between participants by bringing them together in one physical location.  However, the occurrence of these conferences also suggests that activists were not satisfied with operating entirely in a virtual space and that they found value in meeting face-to-face despite the significant effort required to do so.

Cleaver notes that although the actual, indigenous Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico benefited greatly from the online presence of their struggle, they were not actually sending emails or publishing blogs.  A digital divide between the mass of Zapatistas and their sympathizers abroad is evident: “The Zapatista communities are indigenous, poor and often cut-off not only from computer communications but also from the necessary electricity and telephone systems” (Cleaver 1998, 628).  Thus, an intermediary or representative with literacy and access to technology is crucial for the voices of the digitally disenfranchised to be heard.

Kahn and Dellner claim that there is “an evolving sense of the way in which the internet may be deployed in a democratic and emancipatory manner by a growing planetary citizenry to inform others, and to construct new social and political relations” (2002, p.88).  I believe that the case of the Zapatista movement illustrates affirms this statement.  However, it is vital to recognize that the Internet is a potential tool, not a silver-bullet mechanism.  It facilitates fast communication across barriers of space and time and has produced innovative measures such as “hacktivism”, but digital divides limits the extent to which some groups can actively engage in online activism.

Bibliography

CASTELLS, M. (1997) An Introduction to the Information Society. IN WEBSTER, F. (Ed.) The Information Society Reader. New York and London, Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.

DAHLBERG, L. (1998) Cyberspace and the public sphere: Exploring the democratic potential of the Net. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 4, 70-84.

DONK, W. V. D., LOADER, B. D., NIXON, P. G. & RUCHT, D. (2004) Cyberprotest: New media, citizens and social movements, London, Routledge.

HARRY M. CLEAVER, J. (1998) The Zapatista Effect: The Internet and the Rise of an Alternative Political Fabric. Journal of International Affairs, 51, 621-640.

KAHN, R. & KELLNER, D. (2004) New Media and Internet Activism: From the ‘Battle of Seattle’ to Blogging. New Media and Society, 6, 87-95.

MEIKLE, G. (2002) Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet, New York, Routledge.

PAPACHARISSI, Z. (2002) The virtual sphere: the internet as a public sphere. IN WEBSTER, F. (Ed.) The information society reader. New York and London, Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.

My high school theater/music teacher posted this link on Facebook:

http://blogs.alternet.org/dh1976/2010/04/25/“imagine-if-the-tea-party-was-black”-–-tim-wise/

It’s a great article, and I agree with the author’s ideas.  However, I think that as a consumer of media information and a citizen, I think that it is important and productive to critically read articles that I don’t agree with along with the articles that affirm my own beliefs.

This week’s readings examined the Internet’s ability to enhance democracy, obstacles for the Internet as a democratizing force, and factors that need to be taken into consideration besides the technical features.

Both Dahlberg and Papacharissi allude to Habermas’s concept of the “public sphere.”  Haberman defined the public sphere as a space where discussion between private individuals about collective issues leads to enhanced democracy.  The problem is, Habermas’s models of public spheres (the Greek agora, New England town meeting, and bourgeoise café) were not truly public. (Papacharissi, 382 and Dahlberg, 71)  These “public spheres” were actually rather exclusive and represented elitist, sexist, and racist interests.  Therefore, I believe that the public sphere serves best as an idealized model rather than a historical one.

Dahlberg and Papacharissi responded to “utopian rhetoric” of “Net enthusiasts” (Al Gore would fall into this category) who claimed that the Internet will create a more democratic society by promoting dialogue and giving voice to unrepresented groups.  Both authors seemed less optimistic about the democratizing powers of the Internet, or at least wished to present some of the barriers to a political Utopia created by Internet proliferation.

Dahlberg argued that the Net enthusiasts rely excessively on the technical aspects of the Internet, at the expense of ignoring the context of ICTs and how their use plays out in reality.  Dahlberg lists these technological features, writing of the “two-way, many-to-many, asynchronous nature of computer mediated communications” (Dahlberg 1998, p.72).  Faster communication, cheaper communication, more information, more sources of information, free information, lack of censorship.  How can these affordances of the Internet lead to more engaged citizens, more responsive governments and more liveable communities?

Dahlberg named three trends that are limiting the Internet’s capacity to vitalize democracies: commercialization by corporations, digital divides, and the “‘privatisation’ of interaction” (Dahlberg 1998, 77).  Many neoliberals and corporations view the Internet as an ideal market place, a space where consumers buy things and firms make profit.  The privatization of cyberspace by corporations is a concern to Dahlberg because he sees the application of market pressures to information as “a form of censorship”.  When the Internet is controlled by a limited number of corporations, they will taylor their facts and messages to whichever group of consumers proves to be most profitable.  It is great that the Internet provides so many sources of information, but if most people get updated by Yahoo News or Google News, just how much are they broadening their mental horizons?

Both Dahlberg and Papacharissi talked about digital divides or “access restrictions” (Dahlberg 1998, 76) and the potential for magnification of social inequalities.  At this point in the course, this is not at all a new concept, but it is worth putting digital divides in a political context because digital divides also play out in economic capital/social capital contexts.  Getting online requires money, time, literacy, computer literacy, and decent infrastructure.  Participating in online dialogue requires further Internet literacy and motivation.

I was not entirely clear about Dahlberg’s point of “privatisation’ of interaction”.  However, I did glean that Internet activity becoming increasingly personalized, more about “me” than about “us”.  It’s about consuming ideas rather than exchanging them.

Papacharissi brought up a point regarding anonymity that I found to be very insightful.  While anonymity often facilitates the expression of thoughts and ideas, it is difficult to direct these words and even harder to tell what effect the words have (Paracharissi 2002, 385).  The audience of a brilliant Internet manifesto may be uninterested, miniscule, or non-existent.  Conversely, how do we evaluate the credibility of discussion participants on Internet forums when we do not anything about them? Is this a good thing because it eliminates bias?

Around the time of the climate change talks in Copenhagen this December, my mom got involved in an exchange of emails about the existence of anthropogenic climate change with a man whom she had never met in person.  This began when the man responded to a mass email that a mutual acquaintance.  For several weeks, emails bounced back and forth, but my mom never did convince the man that climate change was something to worry about.  However, I found the interchange to be useful because it was a window into the values, concerns, and information sources that were leading the man dismiss global climate change as a threat to the future of humanity.  I’m not saying that reading the emails was not frustrating, it definitely was, but it was also a reminder that ideally, dialogue is only half about talking.  I think that the Internet has proven to be a great promoter of talk.  I just wonder how well it cultivates listening.

What is the allure of Twitter? Is it the ego-fueling sensation from shouting messages (albeit short ones) to the world? Is it the synchronization of thoughts, blurbs, and reports from around the world? Is it the windows that it offers into the “back-stage self” of friends, acquaintances, and strangers?

Over the past week, I made information about my activities, my location and my interests available to anyone with an Internet connection through Twitter.    I posted tweets much more frequently than I post status updates on my Facebook account.  Twitter to me is like a cross between a personal journal and a room of mingling individuals with perked ears.   

If someone had been trying to track my whereabouts, I would have made it a lot easier for them.  This made me think, if someone collected information from my tweets for some malicious purpose or another, what grounds would I have to protest? Had I not joined Twitter specifically with the intent of sharing thoughts and updates with everyone?

Two strangers started following my tweets, one from Arlington and one from San Antonio.  I don’t know whether it was organic gardening, Taqwacores, my obscure username, or something else that prompted them to start following me.  Despite the default public nature of material on Twitter, I felt that there was an illusion of a private space.  It was sort of akin to being in a lit-up building with large windows at night.  Aside from my followers (the phrasing makes me sound like some cult leader) I had no idea who was peering in at me from the shadows of cyberspace.  Conversely, I had the power (if I chose to exercise it) to explore thousands of tweets without the tweeters knowing that I was reading their mundane, profound, and random statements.

For some reason, I doubt that conversations with any substance occur on Twitter very frequently.  The interchanges seem like the talk at a shmoozy party: brief, trivial, semi-boastful, and/or inhibited due to the publicness of tweets and comments.  That said, I think people get to the point on Twitter, skipping the routine, cordial greetings that are so common offline. 

Personally, I did find Twitter to be entertaining.  It was interesting to learn about what people were up to outside of class and I was introduced to some funny procrastination websites.  Also, when I was alone studying in some nook on campus, it was sort of nice to have the solidarity of other people doing homework.

A physical panopticon in the form of a prison

This is a panopticon: a prison design conceived by Thomas Bentham.  The architectural design is such that many individuals separated from one another by barriers can be viewed by a person in a central tower who may choose to stay anonymous.  Michel Foucault mainly explores “panopticism” in the context of the carceral system, but says that it can be applied in multiple environments, including schools, hospitals, hospitals for the mentally ill, and work centers (p.303).  At times, Michel Foucalt’s writing in “Panopticism” seems abstract and technical, but he puts forth valuable ideas regarding power, visibility, and surveillance that can be applied when examining the Internet.

Foucault asserts that the “major effect of the Panopticon” is “to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” (303).  This implies that what matters is not whether individuals are actually being watched, but that they knows that the possibility exists, and thus their freedom of action and expression is somehow suppressed.  Another key point is that the “central power” is a source of power, independent of the qualities of its inhabitant.

I find it intriguing to apply the idea of “panopticism” to the Internet, especially after reading about how the anonymity of the web can be liberating.  If we disregard hacking and surveillance of private material such as email, maybe we can think of the Internet as a Panopticon with open doors, where the central tower is accessible to anyone who desires it.  A Facebook newsfeed is like a Panopticon in which users are simultaneously in a visible cell and in the anonymous viewing tower.  The tower provides power because it is very informative, but this power if distributed relatively evenly.

Foucault writes that, “Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance” (306).  Now, Foucault was writing in the 1970s, before the Internet took off.  Raimo Blom reports on concerns regarding Internet surveillance.  Governments with access to email accounts, electronic health records, and certain actions by the Department of Homeland Security have all provoked distrust among members of US society.  That said, I would venture to say that the Internet has fostered a culture of exhibition, not just surveillance.  Along with the desire to observe others is the desire to make one’s self seen by others.  Isn’t that what blogs, Youtube, Twitter, and social networking sites are all about? (Yes, social network sites and Twitter are more selective who is allowed to observe, but I think display is still central to their functions.

Perhaps the Internet’s dual panopticism and exhibition are accepted by most users, but objection arises when an undesirable figure enters the “central tower”, such as a sexual predator or an authoritarian government.  The other concern is that individuals in cells in the panopticon are oblivious or naive about their visibility, such as in the case of adolescents on social network sites.

Scholars at MIT did a study on disclosure of information on Facebook and users’ knowledge of privacy settings.  One of the main findings was that Facebook users did not adequately restrict access to their profiles.  Is this due to technical illiteracy, or is it a manifestation of our culture of display? The study also examined “third-party information”, which includes personal information that is displayed on other people’s profiles through wall posts or photo tags.  I think that the disclosure of third-party information is especially relevant now that the “new Facebook” sets the Newsfeed as the first page the users see when they log in.  Really, Facebook is a gossiper’s dream come true.  We Facebook users periodically broadcast tidbits of our personal lives to hundreds of other people even when we only explicitly direct it towards one individual.

Some aspects of the article are now outdated.  (It was published in 2005.)  For example, Facebook no longer requires a school email address of its users.  Also, my impression is that public awareness about privacy settings has improved, in part due to efforts on the part of Facebook.

I did not entirely understand some of the technical aspects of Facebook.  I have heard of digital cookies many times, but I could not define what one is.

Among the patterns that the article presented were that Facebook users who are more active reveal more personal information, younger classes share more information, students disclose information that is wanted by advertisers, women “self-censor their Facebook data more than men do”, but men generally share less personal information.

I’m not sure how I feel about Facebook giving my information to advertisers.  Right now on my profile, Facebook is trying to convince me to become a fan of Rainforest Alliance, Greenpeace student network, Truthout, all very worthy organizations I’m sure.  As for the more commercial advertisements, I guess I’d like to think that those do not have an effect on me.

Video about Panopticon

Formspring.com is a popular new website that started at the end of 2009.

Its slogan is “Ask questions, give answers and learn more about your friends.”  Internet users who know the URLs of each other’s pages can ask one another anonymous questions, with both questions and answers visible to anyone who has access to the site.

It is obvious that the anonymity of “askers” lowers their inhibitions and leads to more personal or suggestive questions, but does the “answerer” is not anonymous, so are they more likely to be forthcoming? Personally, I doubt it, but that is just my intuition.

There was at least case in which an argument began on formspring, clearly lost its anonymity, and led to a physical fight offline.

http://www.whtm.com/news/stories/0210/707982.html

The article “Web hit touches a chord with anorexics” about a slide show on youtube about a young woman’s struggle with eating disorders reminded me of a speaker at Common Hour earlier this semester.  DJ Spooky, aka “that subliminal kid” gave demonstrations of “scratching” and talked about how digital media has transformed the music industry.  He said something of the effect that we live in a culture of collage and that “creative theft” plays an important role in the process of musical innovation.  This applies to the video “My Story (Anorexia)” because it was combined media from multiple not-famous sources.  The photographs and textual captions recount the painful journey of an anonymous woman, while the audio is composed of a song by an until-recently-obscure Irish musician.  Journalist David Smith suggests that the web allows a synergism of media: “What makes the YouTube film so compelling is the combined effect of the pictures with music” (p.1).  Another dimension of YouTube is the increased level of interactivity.  Viewers can voice their thoughts and opinions in a public arena, and unlike comments in on television or radio, there is no limit to how many can post, and viewers are less limited by time constraints.  They can post at any time, from any location with Internet access.

The Internet can produce the perception of private spaces in a public sphere.  That is, commenters use direct address, speaking not just about the video, but to the creator.  Back-and-forth is possible, and contact can be more personal.

The issue of public and private spaces arose in the Livingstone article, “Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression”.  Livingstone contends that young people who use social network sites are not oblivious to privacy concerns, but that two obstacles impede more stringent settings.  One is that social network sites use a binary concept of friendship which fails to reproduce the spectrum of levels of intimacies that exist in relationships offline.  The second is that many young SNS users are not completely versed in how to set privacy settings on social network sites.

Livingstone’s study explored topics such as “self-actualization”, identity development, life-style and peer relations through interviews teenagers and observations about their social network site profiles.  One of Livingstone’s main findings was that as teenagers progress through adolescence, their self expression and identity development on social network sites generally transitions from “identity as display” (showy, graphic profiles) to “identity through connection” (Livingstone, p.402).

I found it interesting that Livingstone repeatedly referred to peer groups when writing about social network sites, venturing to say that peer groups can be more central to social nework sites than individuals.

Maybe I am just ignorant about social theory, but it seemed strange to me that the author could use fairly short interviews and a small sample size (sixteen individuals), to make very wordy, abstract claims such as, “Elaborating the presentation of self at the node supports the biographization of the self by prioritizing of the self by prioritizing a managed and stylized display of identity as lifestyle” (p.403).  In the same vein, the term “pure relationship” bothers me.  First, I think that the name sounds as if it involves a value judgement, even if that is not what Giddens intended to get across.  Second, I do not see how the distinction between “pure relationships” and “traditional relationships” holds.  While I agree that the structures of family, work, and physical location sometimes create friendships that are somewhat phony, I personally think that relationships without context are weaker, and that relationships founded through family, work, and study can still have the “values of authenticity, reciprocity, recognition and intimacy”.

Overall, it is worth noting that in many regions, the Internet and social network sites are becoming very central to the lives of adolescents, and this trend has important implications for the identity development of young people.

In this week’s readings, semantics is important because the terms “race”, “ethnicity”, and “nationality” are used heavily, and the differences between the meanings of these words is somewhat blurry and subtle.  What is more, these terms can be understood very differently in various cultural contexts.  My understanding is that in a United States context, race is generally associated with skin color and physical traits, along with shared history and language (generally).  According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, ethnicity is a more loose term, denoting, “the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition”.  Nationality is perhaps the most simple term, having to do with citizenship in nations.

Although the two readings for this week both involved the dynamics of race and ethnicity on the Internet, they were quite different from one another.  Mark Posters “Virtual Ethnicity: Tribal Identity in an Age of Global Communications” was very broad, with lots of abstract theorizing, while Mark McLelland’s article entitled “‘Race’ on the Japanese internet: discussing Korea and Koreans on ’2-chaneru’” was fairly narrow in scope, with a case study of a specific website.

Posters adds to our continuous discussion of “real virtuality”, asking whether something is virtual if it is announced but never performed (192).

A key idea when considering anonymous, digitally mediated interchanges is that information typically absorbed by individuals in face-to-face interactions is often absent.  ”Because the bodily markers of ethnicity (physical attributes and vocal accent) are invisible on MOOs, such ethnicity as exists in these electronic communities is fully virtual” (204).  If racial or ethnic identity is a combination of how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us, than the lack of racial cues online can allow for “raceless” individuals and for individuals to present themselves as members of a racial group that they would not necessarily be identified with offline.

Digital divides are divisions manifested in the differential access to Internet , frequency of use, and types of online activities among different groups of people.  Pippa Norris puts digital divides into three categories: global divides, social divides, and democratic divides.

Although Internet use is growing rapidly worldwide and examples of Internet use in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa are often celebrated (consider the farmer in the documentary “The Virtual Revolution”), the reality is that in many countries lots of households do not have electricity and telephones, let alone computers and Internet service.  The big question is, will the Internet help to reduce this disparity or will it amplify the existing inequality.  ”Cyber-optimists” suggest that increasing access to ICTs in developing countries  will promote economic growth, “strengthen democracy”, and “foster international peace and stability” (Norris, 275).  Norris mentions China and Cuba as examples of non-democratic countries with governments that have felt threatened by the Internet.  Last semester, my quad-mate from Beijing explained to me that Facebook was censored in China because of its potential use for political organizing.

Norris says that, “Attempts to move beyond speculative theorizing about these questions face major challenges”.  Basically, it is too early to tell whether the cyber-optimists, the cyber-skeptics, or the cyber-pessimists are correct.

Norris mentions two laws that I find interesting.  Moore’s Law says that “every eighteen months, you can get twice as much power for the same cost”.  Basically, technology is progressing exponentially.  I had heard of Moore’s Law before, and I always wonder what limits it will encounter.  It also makes me think about all the electronic waste produced by developed countries that ends up in China or Ghana. (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/where-does-e-waste-end-up).

The other law that Norris mentions is Metcalf’s law, which states that “the value of a network is proportional to the square number of people using it”.  I am curious how value is calculated or defined.  Do networks not reach a point where they become too big and cluttered to be useful? With search engines, it seems that this can be avoided.  However, what about the law of diminishing returns?

Witte and Mannon focus on the social digital divides within the United States.  The authors examined survey data and compared Internet access and use along lines of gender, age, race, education, employment status, and income level.  A worthwhile point was that these categories do not exist in isolation; they come in combinations.  The major digital divides in the US are associated with education and income.  Individuals with more education and higher incomes are the most likely to use the Internet, to use it on a daily basis, and to use it for activities such as email, work, and online banking.  The digital divide as determined by education and income is actually growing.  Although relatively recently more men than women were using the Internet, Witte and Mannon claim that, “gender is not a major digital divide in terms of Internet use”.  In terms of age, individuals older than sixty five are the least likely to use the Internet.  Whites in the US use the Internet significantly more than blacks do, and this gap remained fairly constant between 2000 and 2007.

Witte and Mannon suggest that in addition to being problems by themselves, “digital divides” are symptoms of inequalities that exist independently of the Internet.  These inequalities will not be fixed solely with technology, though Witte and Mannon do not propose any concrete solutions in this chapter.