Digital Divide Reversal: Evidence, Explanations, and Implications

Whether it refers to Internet access, or the resources needed to operate that technology (most notably digital skills), the digital divide is known to favour rich over poor countries. This perspective chapter, by contrast, draws attention to an aspect of digital use that diverges from the pattern just described and has thus far been relatively neglected in the literature. More specifically, the chapter demonstrates at the outset that in terms of time spent on the Internet and social media, it is developing rather than developed countries that generally have the advantage (a phenomenon that I describe as digital divide reversal). That is, that developing countries generally spend more time on the Internet than high-income ones, and they focus most of their time on leisure rather than development uses. Using numerous United Nations, World Bank, and other well-known sources such as Statista, I then seek to explain these somewhat anomalous findings by identifying certain distinguishing features of poor countries that are responsible for them. The study finds that such features have to do with the age structure of the population; the differential value of time and its comparative abundance in poor countries; infrastructural weaknesses and communications in those countries; and affordability of handsets and data in relation to incomes. What is novel about this approach is not that these various features of poor countries have never been discussed. It is rather that they have here been applied to understanding a neglected aspect of the digital divide, namely, that with regard to time spent on the Internet, it is poor rather than rich countries which, in general, make more use of the technology. I also stressed, finally, that an investigation of the welfare implications of this finding needs to go beyond simply neo-classical notions of the informed actor and ‘more is better’. Rather, one will need to involve disciplines other than economics. More time spent on the Internet, for example, does not necessarily mean that welfare is higher than when less time is spent on it. For one also has to consider the widespread existence of gaming and other addictions, especially in Asia. Moreover, to a greater extent than in rich countries, misinformation about health, governance, and other topics is rife on the Internet in poor nations, leading to mistaken choices by users.