ABSTRACT:
As the world moves towards advance ICT Technology such as Virtual and Mixed reality, Most African Countries are yet to fully adopt the already aging ones such as Mobile telephony, Internet and Social Computing. This is as a result of lack of understanding the factors that inhibit the ownership and adoption of these technologies and the lack of a coherent national strategy to address the problems that inhibit ownership and adoption of these ICT tools and services. This work looks at the factors responsible for the perceived digital divide among some residents of urban and rural areas of Taraba State, Nigeria. A total of six hundred respondents from six communities of three local governments were surveyed to understand the dimensions of the perceived digital divide. From the result obtained, GSM has the widest adoption and usage rate of 75% because of its low cost and little technical literacy requirement while internet dependent services such as web browsing, social sites and video call has the lowest adoption rate of 5% because of their unavailability, high cost and high technical literacy requirement. It is gathered that not cost of technology acquisition but cost of maintenance is the major factor that hinder adoption and usage of all ICT tools surveyed followed by age and educational qualification of respondents. Thus, it is believed that government intervention in bringing down the cost of usage and supporting local technology, content developers and providers will go a long way in enhancing adoption and usage of ICT in the lives of the populace.
Keywords:
Digital Divide, Technology Literacy, ICT Policy.
