Archbishop Mitty High School Examines The Digital Divide

“Is there a Digital Divide”? How does the inaccessibility of technology and information affect low-income people?

These are questions that Archbishop Mitty High School endeavored to answer during a week long immersion led by the Justice Education Volunteer and Advocacy Program at St. Anthony’s.

The students’ exercise assigned each of them a different identity from Pacific Heights lawyer and a mother of three working as a bank teller; to an unemployed homeless person and a 5th grader in the Richmond District. They all started equally at the digital divide line and then answered questions about themselves and their lives, taking steps forward or back depending on their knowledge and access to technology. At the end of the exercise they found themselves at opposite ends of the room; discovering that gender, income, disability, and geographic location all affect a person’s ability to access technology. This demonstration quite clearly illustrated the technological divide in the Tenderloin community.

Students realized that early education and access to technology help people access well- paying jobs that require technological understanding and skills and those who are not able not able to have the same benefit often remain stuck in low wage, low-skills jobs.

Later in the day The Tenderloin Tech Lab welcomed a team of volunteers from Google … stay tuned for what happens next!