Insights from impacts of the digital divide on children in five majority world countries during the COVID-19 pandemic

Effie Lai-Chong Law, Panos Vostanis and Michelle J. O’Reilly

Behaviour and Information Technology, 2023, vol. 42, issue 15, 2696-2715

Abstract: The digital divide is especially pertinent in Majority World Countries (MWCs), and this was exacerbated greatly by the pandemic. Tackling the digital divide underpins the work of Human–Computer Interaction for Development (HCI4D) and remains an important global endeavour. Our project aimed to understand how children and young people (CYP) in MWC coped during the pandemic and how technology played a role. Voices of CYP were complemented by those of their parents and professionals with whom CYP interacted regularly. Our empirical study involved 73 CYP and 76 adults from Brazil, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa, and Turkey. Qualitative data from diaries, drawings and focus groups were analysed thematically. Four major themes were identified – ‘access’, ‘usage’, ‘risk’, and ‘future Among others, some intriguing findings were that CYP acutely felt the peer pressure on ICT ownership and tended to direct frustration at parents, who grappled with their untenable roles as gatekeepers to digital worlds. Implications for addressing the digital divide include long-term strategies to improve infrastructures and mobilise community-based collaborative efforts and enhance digital literacy.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0144929X.2022.2141136 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:42:y:2023:i:15:p:2696-2715

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tbit20

DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2022.2141136

Access Statistics for this article

Behaviour and Information Technology is currently edited by Dr Panos P Markopoulos

More articles in Behaviour and Information Technology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().