"Digital Divide" Between Urban And Rural Youth In Henan: Current Situation, Causes And Countermeasures

Informatization which has become a strong motive power for the development of social productivity causes great changes in national economy. The digital divide is a new phenomenon which emerges accompanied by the development of digitized technology. Digitized technology leads to a gap between information and knowledge, which may bring about risks between regions and people. In today's China, the youth in urban and rural areas have to face to the issue of gap in knowledge or digital divide because of the influence of the dual structure in urban and rural areas, and the imbalance of education system and income level in urban and rural areas which has caused the negative effect to society, culture, economy.The emergence of "digital divide" in the youth of urban and rural areas, who will be the mainstay for the future development of society, will have a profound impact to the whole region, province or even the nation. Not only will it have an adverse effect on the youth's development in urban and rural areas, but also it will lead to polarization and imbalance of the authority distribution in the future development of urban and rural areas. Therefore, it will have a practical significance to the overall development of Henan Province in the future to study and analyze digital divide in the youth of urban and rural areas, and put forward suggestions to improve this issue. The dual structure in urban and rural areas leads to the imbalance of social security and the unfairness of opportunity to use network for the youth in urban and rural areas. The imperfect rural infrastructure causes the difference of access gap for the youth in rural areas. The reasons like bad working environment, long working time and the lack of hardware equipment cause the difference of usage gap and the difference of regions. The low level of education and the atmosphere cause the difference of cognition gap. Furthermore, the economic basis, the education degree and environment also restrict the opportunity for the rural youth to learn digital technology. Whether will it expand digital divide of the youth in urban and rural areas during the information age? This is the theme of this thesis.The objects of this research are the voung white-collar workers from two office buildings-Green Window and Yonghe Count in the new district of Zhengzhou and the new generation of migrant workers from the construction site of Park Road NO.1 in the development zone for high and new technological industry in Zhengzhou, the construction site of Poly Revell Xixi garden, Foxconn and Haoxiangni in Zhengzhou air port. The main purpose of this research is to solve the problem of digital divide for the youth in urban and rural areas. This research will analyze the objects from three levels-access gap. usage gap and gap in knowledge with the methods of questionnaires and interviews. It will find out the reasons of digital divide between the youth in urban and rural areas.After investigation and study, the reasons for the "digital divide" between urban and rural youth are mainly economic factors, educational factors, personal information awareness, family environment factors, information technology development and other aspects. According to the successful cases of domestic and foreign bridge the digital divide, through the use of government power, strengthen the rural youth sense of digitalization, digital demand and supply sufficient, accelerated the progress of digital technology and improve the rural youth's income and other favorable conditions, to bridge the Henan city of rural youth "digital divide" put forward to strengthen the government's dominant force, accelerate rural digital infrastructure, reduce universal Internet access fees and other related policy recommendations in this paper.