Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that not all schools provide their students with access to computers and the Internet. In the past, many studies simply counted the number of schools connected to the Internet; however, it was soon realized that this number is not an accurate measure of student access. Though a school may have Internet access, if it is not made readily available to the students, it is not very effective. The presence of computers in a few vague locations around the schools' campuses—even in a specific computer laboratory—is not as conducive to using ICTs for higher order skills as placing fewer computers in classrooms (infoDEV 3). The focus of such studies then switched to student-per-computer ratios and the number of computers per instructional room (Monroe 6). The data has shown that “a vast gap does indeed separate rich and poor... and that gap is at once economic, racial, discursive, and epistemological in character” (Monroe 5). The matter of who is on which side of this digital divide is dependent upon several factors, but there does exist a general trend that provides insight on who has access and who does not.

This trend is consistent across different regions, schools, and even time periods: the determining factors of who has access and what the quality of that access is are race, gender, linguistic ability, cultural heritage, and income. Urban families with an annual income of $75,000 or greater are 25 times more likely to have Internet access than rural low-income families. White, Pacific Islander, and Asian American households make up the vast majority of those who have access, while Black and Hispanic households are very much in the minority (Solomon, Allen, and Resta xviii). In addition, those who live in rural areas are far less likely to have access to computers, use the Internet, or use new technologies to their advantage than those who reside in urban areas (Ministry). The numbers illustrate this trend. This issue of access is putting many individuals at a distinct disadvantage.