Page 275 - Kaleidoscope Academic Conference Proceedings 2024
P. 275

Innovation and Digital Transformation for a Sustainable World




                 Table 6 – Model 4: AIC-Optimized Model       7.2 A HOLISTIC VIEW OF INTERNET
           AIC: 755.4827, Multiple R-squared: 0.8308, Adjusted
           R-squared: 0.8222                                  The  findings  from  Model  4,  which incorporated
                                                              educational, economic, and governance variables, suggest
                           Co-                                that a comprehensive approach to internet access is
                                                     P-
             Variable    Efficient    Standard      Value     essential.
                                       Error
                          (Est.)
                                                              The significant role of urban population and secondary
                                                   0.005872
            (Intercept)  11.53860     4.09683                 education indicates that strategies should target both urban
                                                     **
                                                              and rural areas to bridge the digital divide. As the lines
                                                              between urban and rural blur, measures of urban population
            Urban         0.33123     0.05861      1.56e-07
            Population                               ***      may represent physical infrastructure and access to
                                                              resources (including education) rather than implying cities
            Secondary     0.16804     0.05769      0.004439   are necessary for internet use. This is further demonstrated
            Education                                **       by the simple regression finding that urban population
                                                              alone only explains about 54% of the variation in use
            Mean Years    2.24388     0.48164      1.00e-05   (R-squared = 0.5367).
            Schooling                                ***
                                                              Political stability also plays a crucial role, as it influences
            ICT Price    -0.08804     0.04283      0.042503   both infrastructure deployment and the public's ability to
            Basket                                    *
                                                              effectively use the internet.
            Political     0.16606     0.04202      0.000147
            Stability                                ***      The ICT price basket's modest impact relative to
                                                              educational variables reinforces the need to focus on
                                                              broader development goals rather than purely economic
                   7.  DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS            measures.

           This study offers two key insights: First, education is a  7.3 CAPABILITY APPROACH FOR ICT4D
           more powerful predictor of internet use than economic
           factors. Second, a holistic approach to internet access,  These findings not only quantitatively illustrate insights
           incorporating educational, political, and infrastructural  from qualitative research but also validate Sen’s capability
           considerations, may be essential to expanding equitable and  approach as an effective framework for evaluating the
           enriching internet access.                         interplay of freedoms that enhance internet access. The
                                                              analysis aligns with Sen's capability approach, suggesting
           7.1 EDUCATION OVER ECONOMICS                       that expanding any significant freedom, such as education
                                                              or political stability, contributes to broader development
           The analysis highlights that educational attainment,  goals.
           particularly mean years of schooling, has a more substantial
           impact on internet use than economic variables like income  8.  LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
           and internet affordability.
                                                              While this study provides valuable insights, it is not without
           This suggests that efforts to increase internet access should  limitations. Firstly, the data used were cross-sectional,
           focus on enhancing educational opportunities and digital  providing a snapshot that limits our understanding of
           literacy, rather than solely reducing costs.       long-term trends and causality. Future research should
                                                              explore longitudinal data to better capture these dynamics.
           For example, the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative,
           which aimed to improve educational outcomes by     Future studies should investigate longitudinal data to better
           distributing laptops across the Americas from 2007 to 2010,  understand the dynamics of internet use over time,
           failed to achieve its goals, primarily due to the lack of  especially leading up to and following the COVID-19
           digital literacy training [21]. This demonstrates the  pandemic, when global efforts to expand internet access
           importance of education in driving meaningful internet use.  reached a fever pitch. Further research could also benefit
           The initiative's shortcomings have been largely attributed to  from incorporating more robust data on digital literacy and
           the absence of key capability inputs such as digital literacy  examining smaller, more homogenous samples to address
           training and considerations for point of access [22]. This  biases in secondary data sources. Special attention should
           research corroborates qualitative findings: enhancing digital  be paid to the actual use of internet following any project
           literacy proves more effective in increasing actual internet  intended to expand internet access, for the benefit of
           use than would providing the hardware alone.       intended beneficiaries, policy makers, and development
                                                              practitioners.







                                                          – 231 –
   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280