Illiterate people are using cybercafes in India, reports a research study

Illiterate people are using cybercafes in India without any special programs or applications for them, reports a research study. Haseloff,* a doctoral student at the University of Augsburg, Germany in his ongoing research study on "Cybercafes and their Potential as Community Development Tools in India" reports, among other things, that "it is a positive sign that currently some illiterate people are using cybercafes for a variety of reasons, without any special programs or applications for them being in place." His study, however, rejects the claim that cybercafes bridge the digital divide. According to him: "it appears that cybercafes according to the categories age, employment and education mostly serve the better-off groups (the young, the highly educated and the higher income groups). These findings confirm the results from the street survey, where Internet use could be measured only among the middle and upper-classes. Therefore, the theoretical assumption that cybercafes might help bridge the digital divide for the lowest SEC groups has to be rejected, at least at present." (Note: SEC= Socio-economic categories). His general finding is that "cybercafes play a significantly different role in India, compared to the role they play in the most developed countries. Whereas in developed countries, they are just an additional access point for people who already have access somewhere else, they seem to be highly important for the middle class in India, and therefore effectively help to bridge the digital divide for this group." Haseloff needs to be complimented for undertaking this policy-relevant study.Dr

D.C.Misra
June 10, 2005 _____________________________________________________________________________________
*Haseloff, Anikar M. (2005): Cybercafes and their Potential as Community Development Tools in India, The Journal of Community Informatics, Volume 1 Number 3 (2005), http://www.ci-journal.net/viewarticle.php?id=68&layout=html(accessed: June 10, 2005)