The Daily Yonder just posted a study on the digital divide – specifically what’s the cause and what sort of policies might help reduce the divide. Access is a problem but adoption is a bigger problem, especially in rural areas…

We first used Current Population Survey (CPS) data to document that the urban-rural broadband adoption gap was 13 percentage points in 2003 versus 12 percentage points in 2011. In other words, the gap remained almost unchanged even though there was a significant increase in household broadband adoption rates in both urban and rural households between 2003 and 2011.

They looked at characteristics of non-adopters and cross referenced them with rural versus urban. It turns out that even after accounting for age, education and income, 10 percent of the gap applies only to rural.

The reasons non-adopters gave for not using broadband is what we’ve heard before – the forerunner answer – there was no need.

Then they looked at how policymakers are trying to address the gap. Primarily they are supporting deployment of broadband – and the authors were quick to note that deployment is important – but so is adoption…

As more and more crucial activities are being conducted online (children’s homework, searching for and applying for jobs, etc.), federal and state broadband policies should concentrate in increasing rural adoption rates targeting specific demographics with digital literacy efforts.  There is already some good work being done in these areas across the country (a nice summary of some early demand-oriented programs can be found here) and we argue that more federal funds should be used to support this type of work.  It is important to note, however, that funds should also be used to evaluate which types of programs actually work.   A preliminary study on the adoption-oriented ARRA funds (referenced in Figure 1) shows that they did not have a meaningful impact on increasing local broadband adoption rates.

An increasing body of evidence is showing that it is the adoption of broadband (and not simply the provision of infrastructure) that is responsible for improved economic outcomes in rural areas.  Refocusing national broadband programs to emphasize this adoption component is the next logical step.

I’ll add a quick note from lessons learned with Blandin Foundation’s ARRA-funded Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) program. The program supported broadband adoption initiatives in various communities around Minnesota and at the end of the project, Jack Geller researched the impact on broadband adoption rates. Here is what he found…

With these caveats in mind, at the beginning of 2012 we estimated that broadband adoption increased 7.4 percent in the MIRC communities, while the rest of rural MN increased by 5.7 percent.

… Well doesn’t seem like much of a difference!

While this difference may seem quite modest at first glance, it is important to recognize that this means the pace of broadband adoption in the MIRC communities is actually 29.8% faster than in the rest of rural Minnesota.