Digital divide used to be and still is a real concern in our industrialized countries. Maybe we should end talking about industrialized countries to say “computerized countries” what seems to be more relevant with today’s world. Maybe some would say that it’s because we neglected this shift that we were stuck with old industrial models applied to a “soft” economy and that what happened last fall happened. We could talk about the destiny of both Google and GM, what is the embodiment of the changes our word is experiencing but that’s not my point here.

At the beginning, digital divide was defined as inequality of access to digital tools. There were those who could access them and the others. It’s easy to understand the amount of opportunties for the early users who were able to gain abilities while the computer and, after, the web industry was growing up, while, on the other hand, the other had to catch up with these technologies years later. And some are still running to jump into the train.

Considering my generation for instance, I can see the difference bewteen those who had their first computer in 1985 when aged 10, discovered the web with a 56 ko modem in 1995 and followed this trend and those who had their first computer in 1997 and their first internet experience in 2000. The gap still remain today.

Anyway, at this time things were clear : there were those who could affort a computer (or those whom parents could) and the others. Among them, some see the interest, some didn’t. Then there were those who had cable or ADSL very early and those for whom this technology was not available in their city. Hence this divide.

Today, web 2.0 shows us the divide has a new nature. What means different means will be needed to fix it.

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