Digitally Invisible

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Digitally Invisible by Nicol Turner Lee, read by Rachel Handshaw.

Billions of people around the world lack internet access. No one cared until the whole world had to go online.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly said that the United States would close the digital divide under his leadership. However, the divide still affects people and communities across the country. The complex and persistent reality is that millions of residents live in digital deserts, and many more face disproportionate difficulties when it comes to getting and staying online, especially people of color, seniors, rural residents, and farmers in remote areas.

Economic and health disparities are worsening in rural communities without available internet access. Students living in urban digital deserts with little technology exposure are ill prepared to compete for emerging occupations. Even seniors struggle to navigate the aging process without access to online information and remote care.

In this book, Nicol Turner Lee, a leading expert on the American digital divide, uses personal stories from individuals around the country to show how the emerging digital underclass is navigating the spiraling online economy, while sharing their joys and hopes for an equitable and just future.

Turner Lee argues that achieving digital equity is crucial for the future of America’s global competitiveness and requires radical responses to offset the unintended consequences of increasing digitization. In the end, Digitally Invisible proposes a pathway to more equitable access to existing and emerging technologies, while encouraging readers to weigh in on this shared goal.

Critics Review

AI Equity Lab founder Lee argues that a digital divide persists in the United States due to race- and place-based discrimination. Her book notes three decades of federal efforts to foster digital equity, with particular attention to the Biden administration’s policies and their limitations. Millions of Americans, especially people of color and those who live in low-income rural and urban areas, lack affordable broadband or high-speed internet access, and which prevents people from finding jobs, working remotely, accessing telehealth services or public benefits systems, doing homework, or even using modern farm equipment. Plus, analog and in-person services have diminished, leaving folks without broadband in the lurch. Lee recounts her travels around the country interviewing people impacted by the digital divide and recalls her time as a computer lab manager at a low-income residential tower in Chicago. This thorough narrative rethinks the digital divide from the lens and considerations of race and place. It’s sure to inform debates and directions in public policy, industry, and civil society, including libraries.
Library Journal
Dr. Nicol Turner Lee understands that the digital divide is not just a technology issue, it's a people issue, and a civil rights issue. Through engaging vignettes and conversational prose, this critically important book exposes the stark reality of life for those on the wrong side of digital opportunities. Turner Lee deserves commendation for bringing this pressing issue to the forefront, sparking essential conversations, and inspiring action towards a more connected America. As we enter the AI era, it is more vital than ever that policymakers, community organizations, and industry work toward a more inclusive future.
Larry Irving, former assistant secretary U.S. Department of Commerce
Digitally Invisible is a phenomenal must-read for those seeking to understand how the lack of online access is a historical by-product of long-standing systemic inequalities.
Aldon Morris, Northwestern University; author of The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology
A timely revelation about technology’s erasure of certain communities.
Bishop Leah Daughtry, coauthor, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics
No one writing today knows the story of the many digital divides in America better than Nicol Turner-Lee. In this magnificent book, Dr. Turner-Lee weaves personal narrative with careful study to reveal what we need to know about the divisions in our society in terms of access to new technology. Today at the forefront of the national debates about technology, Dr. Turner-Lee has given us a great gift in this form of this book.
John Palfrey, president, John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation
For decades, Nicol Turner Lee has been deeply committed to the issues of digital equity and their effects on our society. With academic rigor and unbridled passion, she illuminates the high stakes of addressing this digital disparity. Turner Lee has been a colleague and adviser through countless convulsions of technology and policy, and I count her among the voices I am always ready to listen to when serious policy issues are being debated.
Michael K. Powell, former chairman, Federal Communications Commission
Nicol Turner Lee is a pioneer and leader in the important national dialogue on how to ensure that every American has access to the technologies that will define this country’s future. This book engagingly interweaves the common challenges facing disadvantaged urban school districts and remote rural farms with the competitive imperatives the nation faces. With the immense transformative potential of artificial intelligence, this book is urgent reading for policymakers, journalists, academics, and business leaders.
Marcus Brauchli, former editor, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal
Digitally Invisible brings us the voices of people across America with shared interests in a just digital future with authenticity and powerful compassion.
Vilas Dhar, president, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation

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