Laura @ CET

 “The future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed.” William Gibson’ s comment* is more pertinent than ever at this time of ongoing digital changes, especially in relation to internet access, broadband and cell phones. Which of the new technologies might distribute the future more evenly? Which might worsen existing divides?

I had reason to dig up the most recent facts and figures I could find, for a talk I gave at the Elearning Update at CPUT last week. One of our fabulous CET interns, Annette Lombe, got me going, and after several hours perusing and scratching about, I put together the best recent picture I could.

This blog posting is about access to computers and to the internet, next time I will look at broadband and at cell phones.

The most recent World Bank figures, in 2009, state that there are 8.5 personal computers per 100 people in South Africa.

According to the ITU in 2008, there are 10.75 Internet users per 100 people in South Africa.

The following table, combining 2007  ITU figures from three countries  show that fewer than one twentieth of South African households have Intenet access, unlike households in the region of two thirds in the UK and USA.

	Proportion of households with computer	Proportion of households with Internet	International Internet bandwidth per Internet user (bits/sec)
South Africa	14.8	4.8	852
UK	75.0	67.0	55281
USA	70.2	61.7	15341

 

Considering the total number of Internet users in Africa comparatively is sobering:

From: www.Internetworldstatistics.com

The following graph of 2009 shows how numbers are starting to plateau in developed countries,  and are still rising in developed countries (also shows the discrepancies of course).

From: Manuel 2009

Interestingly, South Africa’s internet penetration rate per population is not even in the top ten Africa countries as the  following graph shows. (How does Zimbabwe manage a higher internet % per population than South Africa???)

From ITU 2007

Of course, even within the country , there are divides, and 2008 figures show how advantaged the Western Cape and Gauteng provinces are compared to other South African provinces.

From: Goldstuck 2008

As Arthur Goldstuck comments “The clearest indication of a connectivity divide in South Africa lies in the discrepancy between population of a province and number of Internet users. When proportion of Internet users in a province is compared with proportion of population who are in that province, it becomes clear that Western Cape is the best connected of the provinces (bearing in mind the skew towards home  users), with a ratio of twice as many users as its population proportion would indicate. The only other province with a positive ratio is Gauteng” (Goldstuck 2008, p.119).

Finally, Internet penetration by age shows how steep the drop off of Internet users is after the age of 50. (The percentages here are as proportions of Internet users within each age group). Thus the 45-49 age group has almost the same penetration of Internet use as the 16-19 age group.

 

From Goldstuck 2008

One last point. An interesting aspect of these findings the way that they contradict current beliefs about so called “digital natives” being the young and being the Internet users.

Why does this all matter? Believe it or not I am not an Internet evangelist. But as Manuel Castells emphasised at a talk at the Centre for the Book here in Cape Town recently, the digital technological revolution has happened whether we like it or not. It is how we make sense of it and what we do with it that matters. The bit of sense-making in this blog highlights ongoing digital exclusion. 

 -------------------------------------------------------

 * According to Wikipedia, his actual comment was "As I've said many times, the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed." and was said during an NPR interview (30 November 1999 Timecode 11:55)