Van Dijk and Hacker

We have totally made some of these arguments in class.  The 4 successive kinds of access listed; experience, possesion, skills, and usage opportunities are complex and different for everyone in every part of the world.  They analyze all four of these types of access for males and females of different ages, and education levels.  

They argue that many people who do not use computors are people who could have access but choose not to utilize opportunities or spend their money on technology.  They argue that part of the digital divide is the fact that much of the reason the younger generation utilizes digital technologies is because they understand them and have no barriers with the tools themselves.  Simply by making applications that are easy for older people to use and applications that can greatly help older people and minorities, the digital divide would be greatly lessened.  We have talked about this in class but not in the same light.  Van Dijk and Hacker are making a point that one way to lessen the digital divide is creating new and changing existing digital content.