Hye-Soon Kim

Knowledge Usage Access Digital Divide Internet activities

Although South Korea is ranked highest in the world in terms of IT knowledge and usage, Internet connectedness, and broadband access, so-called ‘digital divides’ are prevalent and salient. These divides are especially dependent on people’s income, education, occupation, and age. The three variables of socioeconomic status (SES), namely, income, education, and occupation, are most often used as a measure of class. Korea’s digital formation advanced even within a single year from 2001 to 2002 toward the provision of universal access and the reduction of the digital divide, but the changes were uneven. Awareness of this unevenness enables us to identify the policy priorities set by the Korean government. Training and education have been aimed much more at students or schools than at women; the provision of Internet infrastructure is more pronounced in rural areas. Unlike in the case of knowledge, access, and usage, age and the fact of being a student are the most influential determinants of what people do online in Korea. They are closely related not only in their demographic classification, but also in their social and cultural standings, as a result of a strong emphasis on education and the ‘right age’ for life stages, which are all connected to the ingrained Confucian culture of Korea. This implies that Internet activities are more of a matter of culture than class. This interrelatedness may be a result of their being different faces of the same group: namely, adolescents. What they do for their pastimes and what they do online not only distinguish them in the online subculture, but also contribute to form the age- or generation-specific online culture in Korea.