A Pew Internet report says that while 56% of Americans have accessed the Internet wirelessly, there’s a stark racial divide in the devices we use. About half of the African-American and English-speaking Hispanic population accesses the Net through cellphones and other handheld devices, but only 28% of white Americans have ever done so.

Three bullet points quoted from the report:

* 48% of Africans Americans have at one time used their mobile device to access the internet for information, emailing, or instant-messaging, half again the national average of 32%.

* 29% of African Americans use the internet on their handheld on an average day, also about half again the national average of 19%.

* Compared with 2007, when 12% of African Americans used the internet on their mobile on the average day, use of the mobile internet is up by 141%.

We can read this in many different ways:

• Mobiles are helping to end the digital racial divide

• Mobiles are extending the digital racial divide by providing second-class Net access to African Americans

• For a far greater percentage of African Americans than white Americans, the Net is less generative and participatory

• We’d better make sure that the carriers become device independent and Net neutral

[Tags: digital_divide mobiles pew race ]

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