Digital and Inter-Generational Divide

Digital divide can be considered a macro economical index representing the social differences and the separation between the North and the South of the world. Since the first definition of digital divide, it has been shown that it is also a great and unrecognized problem in the developed countries, especially in the field of education. “Digital disconnection” is a key problem for School and University as institutions. In this article, the above questions are widely analyzed with a special attention on the spreading gap between digital natives (i.e., young students), and digital immigrants (i.e., parents, teachers and policymakers in the school). DOI: 10.4018/jdldc.2010101901 2 International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence, 1(1), 1-23, January-March 2010 Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. questions posed here. The issue of the Digital Divide is a worldwide theme and unfortunately not well known about in Italy (Zocchi, 2003; Tarallo, 2003). Through the analysis of Arjun Appadurai’s ideas we can evoke the “divergent globalization” concept (Appadurai, 1996), and at the same time Manuel Castells warns us about: “The problem of the internal differentiation of what was once the “third world”, in the newly industrialized countries (the Pacific Rim area), relatively self-sustaining (China, India) and decomposing societies (Africa, Sub-Saharan, fourth world) have a lot to do with the different degrees of integration or adaptation of these societies for the processes of the information economy” (Castells, 1999, p. 44). At the same time the phenomenon of mass migration from countries in “rapid decomposition” towards rich countries is correlated to the development of the information economy, just as the topics of the intercultural integration, internal security of developed countries and even of international terrorism is. For example, the January 9, 2002 issue of the Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera” published an insightful article written by the ex US President, Bill Clinton. The article began: “This new century poses an important question: is the era of interdependence (or we could say of digital globalization) for mankind good or evil? The answer depends on several factors: on the fact that we rich nations today diffuse the advantages and reduce the tribulations of the world; on the fact that the poor nations make the necessary changes for progress to take place; on the fact that we all are able to develop a high enough level of conscience to understand what our reciprocal obligations and responsibilities are”. Clinton’s reasoning centers the question of the relationship among the international crisis, globalization, security and “access” as the benefits of the digital revolution, which the attack on the Twin Towers September 11 dramatically showed us. A few lines later, Clinton writes: “The terrorist attacks on September 11 were a manifestation of globalization and interdependence as much as the explosion of the economic growth was. We cannot insist on having all the advantages without also seeing the other side of the story. It is very important therefore, to consider the war against terror in the broadest context of the question of how to manage our worldwide interdependence”. The question which we should ask ourselves therefore is the following: how is it possible to use the new technologies to decrease and not increase the divide between rich and poor countries? How is it possible therefore, to give to the 5/6ths of humanity access to the huge quantity of information, communication and opportunities for emancipation, which global content providing has circulated inside the “second Minneapolis flow economy”. And these global questions are challenging also for the second topic we will try to point out 21 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the publisher's webpage: www.igi-global.com/article/digital-inter-generational-