Our times are surely shaped by ICT, partly because such technologies carry the essence of what is commonly referred to as the age of globalization: global reaches, fast pace, and knowledge as the main commodity. (Drori, 2010)
We as a society strive to develop, communicate with like-minded individuals, discuss things that facilitate decision-making and generate offline activism. US and Japan are the major contributors when it comes to digital technology innovations and communications. Japan has the latest technology; US has the latest global social networking publications and Apple. Due to these countries’ innovations, this time around smartphones have particularly opened a new window to accessing the Internet. When concentrating on the mobile networking, Americans in general are accessing the Internet through mobile devices in increasing numbers, with 59 percent (Brustein, 2010) of those surveyed saying they accessed the mobile Web, compared with 51 percent in the previous year.
Smartphones have been established as a bridge between the digital divide in the world. As the US smartphone user stats increase, this has been argued to show the slow evanescing of the divide. Selwyn (2004) describes digital divide as a gap between people with effective access to digital technology and those with very limited or no access at all. Some scholars describe it as a cause of socioeconomic status, where resulting in being able to have an access to the Internet.
On one hand, living in a developed country and having the great technology, which allows instant access to the Internet does not necessarily describe the digital divide. Whereas, if we look at the offline accentuation online- this could be the next level of establishment the meaning of the digital divide.
As an example, the diagram shows that even though England has the largest population of Twitter users compared to Egyptian population, they do not influence each other as much and there is fewer exchange of information occurs. Egyptian Twitters on the other hand have a bigger influence in their say and actively follow one another.
The larger population of Twitters in UK could be described as the country is so economically stable unlike Egypt, where in UK for example, there is a more likely chance of a teenager owning a smart phone and “Twit”. Looking at it from the new digital divide idea, those individuals have no constant participation in the society and at the end of the day, their opinions would not be heard.
A 26-year-old woman worried about the state of her country wrote on Facebook: "People, I am going to Tahrir Square". (ibnlive, 2011)
In the case with Egypt, where government shut off 93% of the nation’s Internet access due to online participation getting too influential on the public. (Hatamoto, 2011) This proves how great the digital divide can be. Facebook, Youtube and Twitter users started an online revolution in the country, which was in the name of freedom of speech and standing up for their rights (Hauslohner, 2011). Due to the online activists- the protest movements were formed, snowballing more viral activity than ever.
Internet World Stats (2010) show the highest growth of Internet users from 2000 to 2010 by 2, 357% in Africa. This compared to Asia being second, growing by 621%, whereas Europe has only grown by 352%.
When particularly looking at Facebook, it penetrated the Egypt Internet user market by 8% since 2009, comparing it with the World Total Facebook penetration by 9.3%. These statistics relate to the fact that when digital communication devices are used, they generate a community of active and non-active participants. Active participants are the once that use those tools in the benefit of their opinions being heard and acknowledged; those take the great advantage of the tools of reaching people quicker on the global scale.
It seems like social network is the only way where control can be put in the hands of the public, i.e the Egypt case. However, in some countries/societies it should be argued that people may thus have technical access, but they may still continue to lack effective access in the knowledge of how to extract information for their needs from the material available on the Web. (Hargittai, 2002)
As it has been learned by the companies, having a Facebook page or a Twitter account, doesn’t necessarily mean that it would bring profit to companies as “digital is the future of companies’ success”. Clear objectives for having a Facebook page have to be provided by the brand and responsive mechanism to its clients’ engagement. Transparency of a brand is another point of going socially active online. A brand should connect its meaning and what it stands for through the web. In the case of Egypt, those individuals were using Facebook and Twitter to arrange protests and meetings. They were transparent in their reasons behind the actions. The same principle should be applied to a brand, as when it starts participating online, it should develop a relationship with its consumers by bridging that digital divide of not just being online but start conversing, encouraging purchases and engaging.
In the social media, SOCIAL is what is important and everyone has a part in it. This is where the digital divide occurs; individuals/brands have an access to the media tools, but do not know how to interact and connect with the audiences and it does not become so social any more. Marketers job is to make sure that consumers and brands understand the social side of media. In future, when the divide is bridged- both sides will benefit from being online. Brands would become more personal and consumers would become more engaging and responsive. To conclude, perhaps the next buzz of promotional marketing channel for a brand would be the use of mobile messaging. (Shields, 2011)
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