Digital Divide

In the early 1960s, the concept of Internet was introduced into the world. According to essay, “Roads and Crossroads of Internet History” the author, “Gregory Gromov”， said that several decades later, the first two nodes were interconnected successfully between Leonard Kleinrock’s Network Measurement Center and NLS system at SRI International. So the Internet had been invented formally. In the 21st century, abundant people cannot live without the Internet. However, a lot of men are still “illiterate of the Internet”。 In the other word, they don't know how to use the Internet, and never have some people among alleged illiterates of the Internet ever touched computer. About this before mentioned phenomena, experts defined it as Digital Divide. 　
Digital divide is a sort of technological gap even abyss between two people or two group of people. In the other words, some people are able to use modern technology adeptly, but remaining part of people cannot do that. Because technology has been spread on the planet, the digital divide happen in anywhere, especially in China. In this country, the digital divide always happens in rural area because people who are living in this area usually don't have enough money to purchase a computer and to pay for the Internet services fee. According to the essay, “China: Improving Rural Access to Information and Communication Technologies”， the author said that there was about a quarter people who own public facilities among 3,000 people in province of Guizhou, China through analyzing their survey, and in China, there are numerous provinces the same as province of Guizhou is. All of them are facing the digital divide of rural area. Therefore, to solve digital divide, spreading the Internet via education, reducing price of the Internet and improving the quality of content to attract people using the Internet will be considered as methods. 　 小荷作文网 www.zww.cn
First of all, spreading the Internet in rural areas by teaching will be the most efficient and effective way to solve digital divide because after being taught, people who don't know how to use the Internet will be aware of how to use it immediately. For example, according to the TED talk, “Bridging the Digital Divide”， the lecturer, Aleph Molinari, said that they created a program, called RIA or Learning and Innovation Network, to teach people to use the computer and the Internet, and after one week, there would be at least 140,000 people who were going to be the user of the computer or the Internet. If people set up such a program as RIA in Chinese rural area, plenty of people are going to benefit from this program. For example, if a school that would teach people to use computer was built in rural area in province of Guizhou, villagers might be interested in that program and take part in it. Through learning in a school, those villagers or householders will know how to use computer and what they can benefit from computer. As a result, through learning in a school, those villager or householder will know how to use computer and what they can benefit from computer. However, there is also controversial statement about program. For example, if the people wanted to engage that program, the founder might charge learners money. In other words, people probably need to pay tuition for learning the computer. And some people may not use the computer except at a school because they might not have money to purchase a computer for themselves, and they cannot practice the skill that they learned during the school at home. Consequently, they will forget the skill that they have learned. That means that the program, perhaps, cannot generate the real users of the computer in Chinese rural area. 　
Moreover, if the government wants to bridge the digital divide, they will have to reduce the price of the Internet Services because if the price of the Internet Services is affordable for the people in rural area, they will consider to access to the Internet. For example, in early 2012, the Chinese government decided to reduce the Internet rate to be affordable for the people in rural area， such as 50 RMB《8.05 US dollars》 per month for broadband of 4 Mbps. As a result, According to the repost, “Statistical Report on Internet Development in China”， the author showed the data about the increasing of users of the Internet in Chinese rural area. In the report, by the end of June 2013, the number of the rural Internet users contributed to 27.9% of number of total Chinese Internet users, and comparing with the previous data, there were no less then 9.08 million people accessing to the Internet in past year. But there is also a problem when rate of the Internet is decreased. On the one hand, the Internet providers might lose a lot of money due to reduce the price, and because of this, the provider probably will not supply good service to their customers.　On the other hand, as a result of rate reducing, more and more people in rural area can afford price of the Internet Services, so all of these people would buy a computer to access to the Internet. Finally, more electronic trash will be produced if the people in rural area cannot process this toxic trash appropriately, and it will pollute the environment in that village. 　
In the end, making the Internet more useful by adding various content for different people is an effective way to solve the digital divide because sometimes, the reason why the people in rural area don't use the Internet is that the Internet is useless for them. If people create some information for the people in rural area, a lot of them will access to the Internet because they can benefit from it. For example, according to the essay, “Internet Changes Chinese Farmers' Life”， the author pointed out that previously, there was a little information about agriculture, so nobody wanted to access to the Internet, but with the rapidly increasing number of pieces of agricultural information, a lot of people in rural area will find an opportunity online. In the other word, number of Internet users is growing, and all of them will benefit from the Internet. In an essay 《Internet Changes Chinese Farmers' Life》, there was a farmer who found buyer by the Internet, and he made a lot of money. However, for the people in rural area, almost all of them don't know how to get rid of deceivers. In China, some people know that the people in rural areas are always not educated, and they truth someone without wariness because they believe that they can make a lot of money through cooperating with people who will cheat them. Therefore, if the government cannot protect people’s profit, there will be nobody using the Internet to do business. 　
All in all, in China, there is still very severe digital divide. Although more than five hundred million people in China are using the Internet, almost nine hundred million people in China are facing digital divide 《Internet Changes Chinese Farmers' Life》. If the government can spread the Internet via education, reduce price of the Internet and improve the quality of content to attract people using the Internet, there will be more and more people wanting to use the Internet in the future, and the digital divide will be solved.