Analysing the Digital Divide Factors: Evidence of a Rural-urban Comparison from an Indian District

Abstract

Aims: The digital divide is the difference in access to technology between areas. The study district is characterised by plain and hilly topography, forest and tea garden areas, much of which are backward in terms of geographical location, industrial and infrastructure development.  Under this backdrop, this study tries to identify the different factors leading to Digital Divide in the rural and urban areas of Alipurduar district, India Study Design: The study has been carried out on the basis of quantitative technique. For the purpose of the study, a total of 120 samples have been collected both from rural and urban areas of the study district Place and Duration of Study: This has been conducted from February, 2023 to July, 2023 rural and urban areas of Alipurduar district. Methodology: Stratified Random sampling has been performed for selecting the samples to be surveyed. Questions related to the access and usage of Internet, computer and android phones have been included in the Questionnaire. Results: The study results show that the network connectivity has a significant relation with Digital divide (p=0.00), followed by English language deficiency (p=0.00) and Gender (p=0.00) respectively. Such results are the cause of lesser awareness about the importance of English language and socio-economically and educationally backwardness of people, particularly women. The study also reveals that there is a significant relationship between area of residence and digital divide (p=0.003). The digital divide increases away from the urban area towards the rural area and majority of the rural parts of the study area is located either in hilly or in forest areas.  The network connectivity issue, techno-scepticism, English language deficiency, gender and place of residence are revealed as leading factors of digital divide in the area under study. Conclusion: The paper proposes to enhance network connectivity and suggests a special drive for capacity building in terms of digital literacy and usage of ICT devices, particularly in the rural area. Simultaneously, there is an urgent need to aware people of the remote and rural areas about the importance of English language in general, and women in particular to reduce the spatial and gendered gap in digital literacy in the study district.