An Article on the disability divide in Internet Access and Use

Kerry Dobransky & Eszter Hargittai
THE DISABILITY DIVIDE IN INTERNET
ACCESS AND USE
The increasing spread of the Internet holds much potential for enhancing
opportunities for people with disabilities. However, scarce evidence exists to
suggest that people with disabilities are, in fact, participating in these new
developments. Will the spread of information technologies (IT) increase equality
by offering opportunities for people with disabilities? Or will a growing reliance
on IT lead to more inequality by leaving behind certain portions of the
population including people with disabilities? In this paper, the authors draw
on nationally representative data regarding Americans’ Internet uses to (1) identify
the extent to which people with disabilities are embracing use of the Internet;
(2) how their use of the Internet compares with the Internet uses of the rest of the
population; (3) how having a disability relates to and interacts with other social
statuses (e.g. socioeconomic status, age, gender) with regard to Internet use; and
(4) what explains these trends. They draw on representative data collected by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census of the United States to answer these
questions. It is found that people with disabilities are less likely to live in households
with computers, are less likely to use computers and are less likely to be
online. However, once socioeconomic background is controlled for, it is found
that people with hearing disabilities and those who have limited walking
ability are not less likely to be Internet users. This research enables a deeper
understanding of both the use of the Internet by people with disabilities and
the spread of new IT more generally. For the full article see:
http://www.eszter.com/research/pubs/dobransky-hargittai-disabilitydivide.pdf