The digital divide is a term describing people with and without access to digital information technology, and is often a factor of the rich and the poor; the young and the old.

People in some countries simply don't have access to digital information technology, and therefore become automatically alienated in many ways. Some people believe that basic telecommunication services such as the internet are a fundamental right, and nobody should be deprived of it. I agree, but the internet is not important in the same ways as drinking water, food and shelter.

"People lack many things: jobs, shelter, food, health care and drinkable water. Today, being cut off from basic telecommunications services is a hardship almost as acute as these other deprivations, and may indeed reduce the chances of finding remedies to them."
Kofi Anan (UN Secretary General)

Gordon Brown recently announced that the digital divide can be prevented by the installation of superfast broadband. He claimed that high speed internet will save the government billions and revolutionise how people access public services. I think they need to develop easy to use public websites, rather than increase data speeds, to make the online procedures less tedious.

I, personally, don't agree with the UK government trying to digitise every daily task. It's the elderly that suffer the most, with computers often baffling them, and quite frankly it's not fair. Yes, the government should digitise the majority of essential services, to make the computer literate users life easier. However, they should not phase out traditional methods, such as paper forms for instance. The digital divide will disappear once the generation that has grown up with computers since childhood enter their retirement years. This is my personal view, and probably applies to the majority of governments around the world.

The digital divide will not be eliminated for at least 40 years, in the UK at least. With the continual decline in computer hardware costs, poorer countries may soon be able to develop wired towns and cities, but this is at least a few decades away yet.