Cleveland, OH, is one of the worst-connected cities in the U.S. As I write this from my house in one of the city’s suburbs, I can hear my six-year-old daughter attending virtual school from her iPad in the next room while my husband teaches his art students via Zoom downstairs. We’re one of the lucky families who have been able to turn our house into a multipurpose office and school, due in no small part to the fact that our Internet connection allows all three of us to do our work simultaneously.
As a career-long digital inclusion advocate and researcher, I’ve seen firsthand the importance of Internet access—connectivity impacts health, education, employment, finances, and more. At the Marconi Society, where I am the executive director, we work with leading technologists, nonprofits, and corporations to address these critical gaps. The coronavirus pandemic has clearly underlined what many of us in the digital inclusion community have known for years: access to the Internet is not a luxury, but a necessity.
Every major news outlet has covered the inequities in remote learning, remote work, and remote healthcare. Students, workers, and patients who do not have consistent, affordable Internet access (and the devices and skills to use it) are getting left behind.
Maybe you can work remotely due to the nature of your career. Maybe your family was able to hire childcare to manage your kids’ remote schooling, as mine was, or maybe you live in a household that can manage with just one breadwinner. Internet access is so intimately tied to the ability to navigate the pandemic and emerge financially unscathed that it became nearly invisible to those who have it. Meanwhile, as my friend Clayton Banks of Silicon Harlem points out, there are households in Harlem that have never received an Amazon delivery at their doorstep.
In 2016, Computer Weekly reported that online shopping saved families about $1,000 a year. Unlike in-person shopping, online shopping lets customers compare prices, research cheaper alternatives, and access materials or goods not directly available in their community. In most of the U.S., in-person shopping also requires access to a car or public transportation, and if states enact shutdowns similar to what we experienced in March, online shopping will be the only avenue for purchasing gifts.
Digital exclusion tends to run along socioeconomic and demographic lines: low-income households, people of color, and elderly communities are less likely to have home broadband and the devices to use it. Particularly for lower income households, lack of Internet access means missing out on the savings, comparison shopping, and information that could make the difference between staying within their budget and falling into debt. This has larger implications for income inequality, where unconnected people can and do often pay more for the same products purchased by those with Internet access.
During the holiday season, this problem takes on new layers. According to the Morning Consult’s surveys, 33% of holiday shoppers are planning to cut seasonal costs and 20% are worried about their finances. Consumers hoping to celebrate the holidays without traveling will rely on the Internet to connect with family, “share” meals, and watch gifts being opened via video calls. Without Internet access, families face higher holiday costs and fewer opportunities to connect, which will impact older family members due to the link between social isolation and cognitive decline.
Beyond the financial and social costs of being unconnected, the pandemic has also created new economic divides. The 19th reported in August that COVID-19 has created a category of women who are “collateral damage in what has become America’s first female recession”—tracing a troubling trend showing that women (and especially mothers) are reducing work hours or leaving the workforce entirely. Unemployment numbers for women are climbing, too, disproportionately impacting women of color.
While connectivity will not solve the root of this problem, it does provide opportunities to research government services, enter the side hustle economy, and find community support. Without the Internet, already struggling families face risky in-person grocery trips, lost income, barriers to education, and increasing isolation. As we face a rapidly uncontrollable spread of the pandemic in the U.S. and a continually widening wealth gap, we have to implement new approaches to address the financial outcomes of digital exclusion.
Libraries are changing their approach so they can meet and service their unconnected constituents. PCs for People provides refurbished computers and laptops to eligible applicants. Many organizations are finding creative ways to change the equation; there are hundreds of people working to address digital exclusion, from global collaborations to hyper-local community efforts. There is reason to be hopeful, and to safeguard that holiday spirit and pocketbook, no matter how strange these times may be.
