Our lifestyles become increasingly more digital by the day. It’s here, within this digital revolution, that two long-established issues have collided and their effects compounded by the urgency to move as many forms of business, recreation, and communications online during the pandemic. The good news is that we can start to shrink the gaps of the disability and digital divides. Let’s see how we’re working on this right here in Upstate New York.
What is the disability divide?
Only recently — thanks to leaders and allies of the disability rights movement — is our society opening up to the experiences of the disability community. But as a long history of maltreatment, underestimation, and inequity was marginalizing people with disabilities, precedents were being set for the ways that we communicate, construct buildings, advance technology, and more.
Understanding the disability divide starts by recognizing that the environments we live and work in and the social ‘norms’ that shape our expectations for communication, citizenship, and recreation are still ableist. In our last blog, we break down the meaning of ableism with real-time examples. This absence of disability representation throughout our social evolution further divided the opportunities available to individuals with disabilities and those without.
The emergence of modern technology has equipped the disability community to push back at the divide by leveling the playing field for participation. From text-to-speech to talk-to-text, voice recognition, closed captioning, and optimizable color contrast and text size, digital technologies are tools of independence and inclusion.
Yet, while “digital technologies break traditional barriers to communication, interaction, and access to information for persons with disabilities,” they also introduce new ones. Digital devices are only as effective as the accessibility of the content you are trying to engage with. The technology provides more control over our own participation, but we still remain at the mercy of others, such as social media users adding descriptions to their images and captions on their videos and business professional offering captioning on Zoom meetings. Additionally, mainstream and specialized technology can be cost prohibitive.
Enter: the digital divide.
What is the dIGITAL divide?
The digital divide is the gap that exists between those who have access to modern information technology and those who lack that access. As tech further cements its role in our day-to-day lives, the divide between those who do and don’t have access to devices reflects a greater disparity in opportunity, education, employment, and access to important government, social, medical, and financial services.
The digital divide has been present across our country and in our communities since the adoption of technology. But the urgency with which schools and businesses had to shift to digital environments during the pandemic quickly magnified the problem. A 2019 national survey revealed that more than “four-in-ten [households] don’t have home broadband services (44%) or a traditional computer (46%).” And a majority of lower-income Americans are not tablet owners, either, in comparison to high-income households where owning one or more of each of these devices is common.
Megan Alchowiak, Executive Director of The Shore Foundation, explains it like this:
According to the US Census, the majority of city residents (88%) have some type of computer, smartphone or wireless device. However, this statistic combines a computer, smartphone or wireless device into the same question. Imagine one computer in a household with two adults and two school-age children. The computer must be shared between virtual school classes, remote working hours, perhaps another parent searching for jobs online, and recreational computer use, if there's time and opportunity for that. It's a challenging dynamic, and this is not a rare situation in Rochester, NY.
In the momentum of technology advancement and pandemic-dependence, it’s most often low-income households and the disability community getting left behind. In Rochester, “91% [of children] are economically disadvantaged, and 21% have a disability.“
It isn’t enough to have one device in the household; the amount of devices in the household needs to meet the needs of the family. Additionally, not all technology is created equal. Have you ever tried writing a 2-page paper on your smartphone? Device size can be an important factor for people with dexterity challenges, vision loss, and other disabilities.
AcCESSIBILITY: tHE PROBLEM & tHE sOLUTION
The disability and digital divides collide at the point of access. High costs of technology and internet create a financial barrier to access that limits tangible participation in the digital revolution. Accessibility also applies to the content that technology communicates. When it comes to content created for the web, “the unfortunate truth is that most sites and apps are not built with accessibility in mind and interact poorly — or not at all — with these types of assistive technologies. In fact, as many as 70% of websites in various industries have no or limited accessibility.”
Closing the digital and disability divides requires a two-fold approach to accessibility: technology attainability and content inclusivity.
The Shore Foundation is a Rochester-based nonprofit organization that refurbishes donated corporate computers to redistribute to schools and organizations across the community. Since 2018, the Foundation has distributed over 1,000 refurbished computers to people in need, with their numbers growing exponentially as they respond to the pandemic.
At the core of their work is a collaboration model. Corporate partnerships provide batches of used technology while community partnerships handle the distribution of refurbished devices in areas with the greatest need. Some of The Shore Foundation’s partnerships of note include Mars Inc., EquiCenter, Deaf Refugee Advocacy, Rochester Educational Opportunity Center, and Action for a Better Community.
And now, The Shore Foundation and Endless Highway have teamed up to bridge these divides together with a new program that places devices in households with children and young adults with disabilities. Households in need of additional devices to connect to virtual education, employment, fitness, and social opportunities are encouraged to apply to the Remote Access Tools Grant, where Endless Highway will sponsor the purchase of devices from The Shore Foundation for your family.
“I have spent many years of my career working in nonprofit organizations and most recently in an organization that has supported people with disabilities. I have seen first-hand the power of digital tools in helping people achieve independence, growth, and success. Working together with Endless Highway, I believe we can make a great impact,” shares Alchowiak. Since the program was launched at the beginning of 2021, Endless Highway has sponsored the placement of more than 50 refurbished laptops in homes across Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo, NY.
The Shore Foundation’s dedicated work, and the Remote Access Tools Grant, are a push towards greater access through technology attainability. But content inclusivity requires everyone’s effort.
How To create accessible digital environments
- Ask for the technology and communication preferences of those you work or interact with.
- Audit your websites for content accessibility, including alt text on images, descriptive text for hyperlinks and buttons, site responsiveness across different device sizes, text size, and color contrast. Invest the time to manually bring your site content up to accessibility standards or utilize supportive plug-ins to guide your updates so that your website is a welcoming place for all visitors.
- Integrate accessibility practices into your social media presence. Businesses and individuals can ensure that all social media users are able to consume your content but using the Alt Text Description feature on photographs and adding manual or automatic closed captioning to videos shared online. When using hashtags in posts, use “CamelCase” formatting to help screen readers and text-to-speech features read the content of your hashtag more accurately.
Do this: #EndlessHighway | Not this: #endlesshighway
- Connect with others virtually for social get togethers or business meetings with communication technology that provides audio, video, and captioning options. Upgrade your Zoom package or use Google Meets with closed captioning to ensure everyone can participate and perceive the conversation.
- If your company is going through an equipment upgrade, partner with a refurbishing and distribution organization like The Shore Foundation to give new life to the devices at households, organizations, or schools in need.
- Approach the design of new technology, apps, and digital solutions with everyone’s experience and accessibility requirements in mind from the start.
We can begin to close these divides that deepen inequality. We can bridge these gaps with empathy, resourcefulness, accessibility awareness, and collaboration.
Learn More
Our community is stronger when we support each other. Check out The Shore Foundation’s website to learn more about their mission, careful refurbishing process, and ways you can support their critical work. At this time, technology donations are reserved for corporate commitments to ensure that high-quantity batches of identical equipment are available for redistribution to organizations and school programs. There are great costs involved in the refurbishing process, including data wiping software and purchasing new batteries and chargers. Financial contributions help the organization grow its impact.
https://www.theshorefoundation.com/
Learn more about the state of the digital divide in your area. Resources that share data, testimonials, and opportunities to be a part of the solution in Rochester/Monroe County, NY area include:
https://rocthefuture.org/