The digital divide and how it impacts upon ministry contexts is something I’ve been thinking about again recently, so I was interested to see this article this week, which highlights some new dimensions to the problem as digital systems develop.
In The New Digital Divide, Sojourners Magazine/January 2009, Andrew Sears notes that:
You can see a similar segregation reflected in profiles of Christians on online social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace; most people will have friends with backgrounds similar to their own. If everyone links to people they know, the result is that a disproportionate number of resourced individuals and ministries will link to each other, while ministries serving under-resourced communities are stuck in a virtual ghetto. The rich link to the rich, while the poor link to the poor.