The Digital Divide and People with Disabilities

by Beth Mineo, DATI Director

Why is the issue of the "Digital Divide" so important to people with disabilities? The finding of the recent study, Computer and Internet Use Among People with Disabilities (Note 1), confirmed what most of us already know: while people with disabilities arguably have the most to gain from the emergence of new technologies, they have among the lowest rates of use of the most prominent of these technologies.

Less than 25% of people with disabilities have access to a computer at home (compared to 52% of those without disabilities), and only 11% can access the Internet from home (compared to 31% of those without disabilities). And there is growing concern that technology, once regarded as the means to "equalize the playing field," may turn that field into a muddy bog, miring people with disabilities.

We know that people with disabilities are often economically disadvantaged. A Harris Poll released in July 2000 revealed that employment among this segment of our society has remained at a constant 32% for the last 14 years, despite the economy of the late 1990s with its overall low unemployment rates. The poll also showed that people with disabilities are more likely that those without disabilities to be living in poverty (i.e., household incomes less than $15,000). In addition to economic factors, however, people with disabilities often must overcome an additional set of barriers too often ignored in Digital Divide conversations-system designs that fail to accommodate users' physical, cognitive, or sensory limitations.

By the end of this decade, 80% of the jobs in this country are expected to be in the information technology field. Unless we want to see disability-related employment statistics become even more deplorable, we had better ensure that today's students have the requisite skills to be viable employees. Unless we want to create a new class of people dependent on social welfare programs, we had better do what it takes now to ensure that those at-risk have uncompromised access to the tools and the means for learning how to use them.

Note 1: Kaye, H.S. (2000). Computer and Internet use among people with disabilities. Disability Statistics Report (13). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research