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Gaps close, gaps open: A repeated cross-sectional study of the scope and determinants of the ethnic digital divide

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The paper is part of a repeated cross-sectional study examining how groups in multi-ethnic states adopt and use information and communication technologies, with focus on the magnitude and the determinants of the digital divide between Jews and Arabs in Israel as a case study. The study examines socio-economic and socio-demographic factors correlated to internet usage in general and usage of social media in particular, based on data collected between 2008 and 2010 by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics Annual Social Survey. The data was collected by means of face-to-face interviews conducted annually among 7500 interviewees aged 20 and above. The study demonstrates the multi-dimensionality of the digital divide phenomena and shows how the digital divide does not diminish, yet, rather, transforms over time. As access differences between Jews and Arabs gradually diminish, a ‘second-level’ digital divide of social media usage actually widens.
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... Israel constitutes an appropriate setting for such a study for three important reasons. First, over the past decade, Israeli society has undergone dramatic ICT (Information and Communications Technology) diffusion (Lissitsa & Lev-On, 2014;Rafaeli, Leck, Albo, Oppenheim, & Getz, 2018;Schejter & Tirosh, 2016). Second, Israeli older adults still tend to be on the 'wrong' side of digital inequalities (Lissitsa & Chachashvili-Bolotin, 2015). ...
... As for the Baby Boomers, we found that all socio-demographic variables (excluding gender), which were associated with digital inequality in Israel (Lissitsa & Chachashvili-Bolotin, 2014;Lissitsa & Lev-On, 2014;Rafaeli et al., 2018) and other countries (Afshar Ali, Alam, & Taylor, 2020; Elena-Bucea, Cruz-Jesus, Oliveira, & Coelho, 2020), had significant effects on search engine use in our study. Baby Boomers who are younger, in a couple relationship, are more educated, belong to higher SES, are less religious and perceive themselves in a better health condition were more likely to use the internet for this purpose. ...
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The current study examined the socio-demographic and psychological factors associated with using digital search engines among two generations of older adults. The self-administered questionnaires were completed manually by 231 Silent Generation seniors (those born between 1925 and 1945) and 536 Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) in Israel. The findings show differences between the generations in patterns of association between socio-demographic and psychological variables and search engine use. Among the Silent Generation, only socioeconomic status and education were associated with search engine use, with these variables therefore defining their entry threshold to the digital world. In contrast, among Baby Boomers, all socio-demographic characteristics (excluding gender) were associated with search engine use. Loneliness was negatively associated with the dependent variable among both generations, while psychological distress had a significant effect only among Baby Boomers. We believe that our findings can help develop policies and targeted interventions to counteract expansive social inequalities in internet access for and search engine information-seeking by seniors.
... Various forms of digital inequality do not exist in isolation; they can intersect and coexist. For instance, as demonstrated by Lissitsa and Lev-On (2014), while the disparity between Jewish and Arab Israelis in terms of Internet access has substantially diminished, inequality regarding social media usage has concurrently surged. Consequently, contemporary research endeavors span a wide range of domains and contexts when studying digital inequality. ...
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Purpose This study presents an innovative approach to analyzing user behavior when performing digital tasks by integrating eye-tracking technology. Through the measurement of user scan patterns, gaze and attention during task completion, the authors gain valuable insights into users' approaches and execution of these tasks. Design/methodology/approach In this research, the authors conducted an observational study that centered on assessing the digital skills of individuals with limited proficiency who enrolled in a computer introductory course. A group of 19 participants were tasked with completing various online assignments both before and after completing the course. Findings The study findings indicate a significant improvement in participants' skills, particularly in basic and straightforward applications. However, advancements in more sophisticated utilization, such as mastering efficient search techniques or harnessing the Internet for enhanced situational awareness, demonstrate only marginal enhancement. Originality/value In recent decades, extensive research has been conducted on the issue of digital inequality, given its significant societal implications. This paper introduces a novel tool designed to analyze digital inequalities and subsequently employs it to evaluate the effectiveness of “LEHAVA,” the largest government-sponsored program aimed at mitigating these disparities in Israel.
... Ethnicity is a key category in this regard (Campos-Castillo, 2015;Graham & Smith, 2010;Mabweazara, 2021), which plays a significant role in determining the material, social, and cultural resources of ICT use (van Dijk, 2020). Ethnic differences in ICT access and use have existed for a very long time and have been well researched in numerous countries (e.g., Fairlie, 2004;Gladkova et al., 2020;Lissitsa & Lev-On, 2014;Stiller & Trkulja, 2018). Exemplary for our text corpus is an early, large-scale study by Hess and Leal (2001), that demonstrates massive disadvantages in digital equipment for schools with a high proportion of African American students for 72 urban school districts in the United States, regardless of the average educational attainment and income structure in these school districts. ...
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The digitization process has triggered a profound transformation of modern societies. It encompasses a broad spectrum of technical, social, political, cultural and economic developments related to the mass use of computer- and internet-based technologies. It is now becoming increasingly clear that digitization is also changing existing structures of social inequality and that new structures of digital inequality are emerging. This is shown by a growing number of recent individual studies. In this paper, we set ourselves the task of systematizing this new research within the framework of an empirically supported literature review. To do so, we use the PRISMA model for literature reviews and focus on three central dimensions of inequality - ethnicity, gender, and age - and their relevance within the discourse on digitization and inequality. The empirical basis consists of journal articles published between 2000 and 2020 and listed on the Web of Science, as well as an additional Google Scholar search, through which we attempt to include important monographs and contributions to edited volumes in our analyses. Our text corpus thus comprises a total of 281 articles. Empirically, our literature review shows that unequal access to digital resources largely reproduces existing structures of inequality; in some cases, studies report a reduction in social inequalities as a result of the digitization process.
... The study of digital inequality originally focused on internet access and the existence of internet infrastructure, computing equipment, network connection speed, etc. In time, the emphasis shifted from access to variables related to abilities and skills, attitudes, purposes and character of use, and more (Hilbert, 2011;Lev-On & Lissitsa, 2018;Lissitsa & Lev-On, 2014;Livingstone & Helsper, 2007;Steinfeld et al., 2021; van Dijk, 2005van Dijk, , 2006. People's motivation for using technology has become a central element of digital inequality. ...
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Many government-sponsored policies and programs have been implemented in recent years to reduce digital inequality, but research on the effectiveness of such programs is severely lacking. We examine the short-term effects of participation in Lehava, the largest such program in Israel. Participants in our study completed a survey before and after taking introductory computer and internet classes. The findings demonstrate that motivations for participating in the program (measured before taking the course), as well as knowledge gains (i.e., differences between levels of familiarity with concepts before and after taking the course), were predicted almost exclusively by participants’ perceptions of technology and the internet, and not by socio-demographic or other variables. We conclude by discussing the significance of perceptions over and above socio-demographic considerations for bridging digital inequality gaps.
... Trust extending beyond the immediate group, that essential ingredient of the human rise to dominance, may have started with long-distance forager trade and the expansion of group size. Its erosion in recent times may have been exacerbated by industrialization and development of a global culture gap that the Internet with its digital divide seems helpless to close (Lissitsa and Lev-On 2014). The Internet has allowed the development of surveillance capitalism (capitalism with the commodification of personal information; McChesney 2013, Foster and McChesney 2014), which is creating the epistemic chaos (lack of agreement on sources of knowledge) that Shoshana Zuboff warns against (Zuboff 2019). ...
... These technologies based on broad availability of content therefore undermine community hierarchy [69]: [70,71]: [72]. Studies conducted in Israel report a negative association between degree of religiosity and Internet surfing [73]. ...
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