Slipping ’Net through the

Better web access is not a salvation for the less advantaged in our society

The digital divide is back. But you may be surprised to find out who is on which side of it.

It used to be that we worried about lower-income, less educated people having insufficient Internet access. Educators, politicians and policy makers were concerned that in our great technological revolution, these folks were being left behind. Well, it turns out now that the digital haves may turn out to be the economic have-nots.

A recent report from the Brookings Institution looked at data from the American Time Use survey and concluded that less-educated Americans were spending more time on screens and less time on “active leisure” than their better-educated counterparts. Active leisure included things like socializing, reading, writing, art, sports and exercise. And while those things are associated with positive outcomes in health and general life satisfaction, screen time largely is not.

The authors run down a quick litany of the problems associated with screen time: “Prolonged time spent watching television is associated with poorer health, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Playing computer games, browsing the Internet and other forms of sedentary leisure may contribute to obesity. Such screen time is also associated with lower grades and lower levels of personal contentment among youth.”

The researchers acknowledge that “many of these impacts may not be due to the screen time itself, but to the lack of the activity that it displaces. More time spent in front of a screen inherently means less time doing other things.”

While many of the studies behind the effects of screen time are not long enough or large enough to draw definitive conclusions about their direct effects on our brains or our health, we often fail to consider the activities we have given up inorder to becomemore engaged with screens.

Kids are spending less time outside, we are spending less time engaged face-to-face with family and friends. Whatever other activities we try to undertake — going to school, going to church, having dinner together — are often done in a state of perpetual distraction.

Wealthier, more educated parents are aware of the dangers of too much screen time and often try to restrict it, but lower income parents do not. The authors write that looking at these differences, there could be “implications for social mobility.”

But it’s not just time spent on screen that separates rich and poor. It’s also the content. A 2013 survey by Common Sense Media found that the percentage of kids whose parents had downloaded any educational app for them varied greatly by income. Only 35 percent of children in families making less than $30,000 a year had such apps, compared with 49 percent of kids in the $35,000 to $75,000 category and 75 percent of families making over $75,000 a year.

Or take some recent findings from the MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Political Participation. Surveying young people from ages 15 to 29, researchers found that “young people from socioeconomically disadvantaged households are more likely to get their political information from new online media sources [like Facebook and other social-media platforms] than young people from households with more abundant resources.” And “young people with more socioeconomic resources are more likely to turn to traditional news sources” like print and online newspapers.

While the researchers breathlessly report that the use of new media sources are “mobilizing young people” and that they are “bypassing traditional gatekeepers and mobilizing informal connected networks to make social change,” the truth is that their over-reliance on social media for news may be making them less informed. Whatever young people’s attitudes toward traditional newspapers, these institutions full of paid reporters and editors tend to be a little more responsible about fact-checking than your friend on Instagram.

While greater Internet access was supposed to give us all more and better information about the world, the truth is that better educated and wealthier Americans often know which parts of the web are trustworthy, substantive sources while less educated folks do not. The Internet may have given us all access to the greatest libraries of the world, but first you have to sift through millions of pages of the National Enquirer.

Obviously some schools are trying to combat this problem by suggesting to students that Googling something is the beginning of research not the end. But just as many educational institutions are suggesting to low-income parents that technology is the answer to their kids’ educational needs. Whether it’s expanding Internet access through hot-spot lending programs at the library or the nowfailed digital kiosks on the streets or allowing cellphones back in schools or giving kids iPads in the classroom, New York’s policy makers and others around the country have pushed the idea that access to the Internet is knowledge and it will help kids get ahead. But this is plainly not the case.

If we want to close the gap between rich and poor, it is time to be honest about the dangers of screen time and the problems with assuming that technology can solve everything.