Digital Inequalities 3.0: New Problems and New Approaches

Session Submission Type: Paper Session (90 minute)

Description

Although the majority of residents of countries in the Global North are now using the internet and digital devices, with adoption in the high 80th and 90th percentiles across numerous countries, many people continue to be under-served or under-connected, dealing with challenges, such as being mobile-only users, not having stable or reliable internet access at home, sharing devices with others, or broken or slow devices that don’t allow them to fully engage. In addition, researchers continue to see vast differences in second- and third-level digital divides of skills, uses, and outcomes. As digital technologies continue to evolve and vast swaths of both public and private services are “digital by default,” residents of both highly technology-dependent and less technology-dependent countries are experiencing old and new problems in fully participating in the global digital society.

This session invites papers on digital inequalities that grapple with old and new issues experienced by people across the world. Focus areas could include first-level digital inequalities and issues related to under-connectedness and technology maintenance; second-level digital inequalities related to (new) digital skills, such as algorithm literacy and AI-literacy as well as variety or breadth of internet use or specific uses of the internet; and third-level digital inequalities related to outcomes of internet uses broadly defined to include both potential positive and negative outcomes.

We especially encourage papers that examine new issues or old issues that have resurfaced as a major concern in digital inequality research and/or utilize new approaches to examining and/or addressing digital inequalities across the globe.

Sub Unit

• Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section / Digital Inequalities 3.0: New Problems and New Approaches

Presider

• Bianca Christin Reisdorf, University of North Carolina-Charlotte

Individual Presentations

• A WEIRD Divide: How Low- and High-Income Technology Users Deal With Privacy Online - Anastassija Kostan, JOHANNES KEPLER UNIVERSITÄT LINZ

• Digital Gatekeeping and Racialized Access to Smart Mobility in U.S. Smart Cities - Dezerae Reyes, Texas A&M University-College Station

• Digital Inequality to Digital Deprivation: Prison and the Criminalization of Connectivity - Annika Pinch, Hamline University

• Rethinking the Digital Divides: Sociodemographic Disparities in College Students’ Generative AI Use, Literacy, and Attitudes - Ran Liu, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Social STEM for Girls, Technical STEM for Boys: Screen Time and Socio-Contextual Determinants of STEM Aspirations - Michael J Stern, Michigan State University; Inyoung Shin, Yale University; Keith N. Hampton, Michigan State University

Session Organizer

• Bianca Christin Reisdorf, University of North Carolina-Charlotte