Digital divide

http://soundcloud.com/arno-denzler/digital-divide

Soundcloud seems to have a problem for uploading my record. So, here is the written version of my audio post :

The digital divide

In 2011, Asia is the continent, which counts most Internet users in the world.

It’s interesting to study the world Internet penetration rates, because this type of statistic shows the digital divide between the North and the South. The statistics published on the web site World Stats are very revealing. The average of the Internet penetration in the world is 30,2 percent. It means that almost one third of the humanity has access to the Internet.

Only two continents are under this average, Asia (without the Middle East) with an average of 23,8 percent and Africa with an average of 11,4 percent. North America leads the classification with a penetration rate of 78,3 percent.

These statistics show that digital divide is another example of inequalities between rich and poor countries. It seems that the situation doesn’t evolve very much. But some people think that the digital divide isn’t a priority, and that more important problems like the economic gap or hunger need to be resolved first.

In my opinion all these inequalities are linked.