Digital Divide in Estonia

About the digital divide in Estonia.

The most cited research on the internet is the 2002 research paper conducted by EMOR and Praxis research organizations. The groups that use internet less are the older people, people with the lower education and people who live in Southern part of Estonia or North-Eastern part of Estonia, also ethnically Estonians are more active internet users than Russians in general.

Two years later a similar research was conducted by Factum. The western part of Estonia improved significantly in two years since then , while the regions that are populated with Russians did not improve significantly in time. The biggest growth in internet usage in two years came from the biggest cities which can be a result of the more severe competition between ISP-s.

In the biggest cities about 2/3 of the population used internet while in Southern Estonia and North-Eastern regions only slightly over 50% were internet users. This is probably not a big problem in terms of digital divide as there are “enough” connections in the rural areas and the higher net penetration is normal in the biggest cities.

These days there are also online services like Kõu – (www.kou.ee) that enable wireless internet connection basically in every location in Estonia. So the divide is more visible in terms of users age in Estonia and less regionally and there is not much that can be done about it. The initial Praxis research found that the non-users could start using the internet if they would have some financial benefit from it but the potential of financial benefit is also difficult to see among for the elderly.