US children stride digital divide

Nearly 95% of well-off US children use a PC

America may be one of the most wired nations in the world but there is still great disparity between the digital haves and have-nots.

A study conducted by a Baltimore charity, the Annie E Casey Foundation, looked at the access children in the US have to both computers and the internet.

It painted a picture of an on-going digital divide.

According to the report, while 95% of children living in the richest bracket of American society have access to a computer, only 33% of poorest have the same benefits.

Similarly, 63% of children living in a family with an income of $75,000 or more had access to the internet, compared with 14% in the $15,000 or below bracket.

Wired suburbs

The divide does not end there. The study showed a marked difference between what children in different backgrounds are using their computers for.

While well-off children use the PC for word-processing and homework, their poorer counterparts are more likely to use it for playing games.

There were also regional disparities, with 73% of all children living in the suburbs having access to a home computer, compared with 61% of rural children and 53% of children living in US cities.

While there is still a huge disparity between the number of black and Hispanic children who have computer access compared with white children, there are signs of improvement.

In 2001, 46% of all black children had a computer at home, compared with 22% four years earlier.

Similarly, the rate of home computer access for Hispanic children has more than doubled over the same period.