The Digital Divide

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the digital divide as a critical social inequality, revealing disparities not only in access to technology but also in motivation, skills, and meaningful usage. This divide functions both as a dimension of inequality, shaped by socio-economic status, age, and other factors, and as an axis of inequality, influencing crucial life chances like education, employment, and health outcomes. This editorial emphasises the importance of social policy for bridging these gaps. Research and policy interventions should address four dimensions of the digital divide: how to ensure affordable and ubiquitous material access through infrastructure and subsidies; develop comprehensive digital skills and literacy through education and community programmes; promote beneficial digital use through accessible content, inclusive design, and trust-building measures; and tackle institutional and systemic barriers through coordinated, equity-focused policies and robust monitoring.