IELTS Reading 111: The Second Digital Divide

Adapted from Eurostat / IBGE / Frontiers in Sociology (2025–2026). IELTS Reading Section 3 difficulty, approximately 1,050 words. Source: https://digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu/en/latest/news/how-europeans-use-internet-2025-insights-eurostat

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Reading Passage

A. The numbers, at first glance, look like a triumph. Across much of the rich world, more than nine out of ten households now have access to the internet, and in a handful of countries the figure approaches ninety-nine percent. Banking, health records, government forms, job applications and schooling have migrated online with astonishing speed, and most people experience this as convenience rather than deprivation. But beneath the headline figures lies a stubborn inequality that policymakers have come to call the second digital divide. The first divide was simply about whether a household could get a connection at all. That gap is closing. The second is about what happens next: who can afford a suitable device, who has the skills to use it well, and who lives in a community where being offline means being locked out of ordinary life. Connecting a village, it turns out, is not the same as including it. What the second divide measures is the gap between the official figure — "ninety percent of households online" — and the everyday reality of a grandmother who has never sent an email, a farmer who cannot book the veterinary appointment now available only online, or a small-town shop owner whose customers have all moved to card payments he cannot afford to accept. In that sense the second divide is less a technical problem than a social one, and it is widening even as the raw connection statistics improve.

B. Geography and age are the two fault lines that keep showing up. Within Europe, the Nordic states and the Netherlands report near-universal internet use in both cities and countryside, while countries in the south and east show the widest gaps between town and village. Rural areas suffer not only from weaker broadband but from fewer places where someone can ask for help: libraries, community centres and trained staff are often thin on the ground. The age effect is sharper still. In one large middle-income country, national internet use among people aged ten and over passed ninety percent in 2025 — yet among those aged sixty and over it stood at only about three in four, even though that group was the fastest-growing cohort of new users. Older people in rural areas, where incomes and schooling are lower, sit at the bottom of both gradients at once.

C. Crucially, the problem is no longer mainly about wires. Surveys that look past mere access find that being connected on paper and being able to act online are two different things. A household may have a broadband contract while sharing a single cheap smartphone among several generations; a retired person may own a tablet yet lack the confidence to use it for anything more demanding than messaging relatives. Researchers now measure digital inclusion along several axes at once — access to a device, a reliable connection, the basic operational skills, and the more advanced competences needed to compare prices, spot scams, book appointments or evaluate information. When all of these are counted, the comfortable national averages conceal large pockets of people who are online in theory but powerless in practice. Age and place, studies show, remain the strongest predictors of who falls through that net. Gender, by contrast, turns out to matter less than once assumed — a useful reminder that the divide is not shaped by every demographic axis equally, but by the specific combination of an unfamiliar screen, a thin support network and a service that has moved behind a login.

D. The human cost is not abstract. Being excluded from digital life correlates with poorer mental health, thinner social contact and lower overall satisfaction, especially among older adults who have seen doctor's surgeries, banks and local shops close their physical doors. One surprising mitigation that researchers have identified is what they call "digital back-feeding": when younger family members patiently teach their elders to use phones and apps, the negative effect on well-being shrinks considerably. The effect is not uniform, however; in rural communities, the buffer seems to help older women more than older men, suggesting that the same intervention will not work equally for everyone. Such findings point away from a purely technical fix. Laying more fibre will not, by itself, build the confidence of a seventy-five-year-old who has never typed on a keyboard.

E. Governments have begun to respond, but the responses trail the problem. Public Wi-Fi, subsidised smartphones and basic-skills classes have sprung up across many countries, and the fastest-growing cohort of new users is now, almost everywhere, the elderly. Yet the gap between a first click and genuine fluency is years wide, and the digital world keeps moving — toward artificial-intelligence tools, online identity verification and automated public services — faster than many older or rural users can follow. The second divide is, in the end, less about cables than about power: about who gets to participate in the economy and society that everyone else inhabits through a screen. Closing it will require not more masts and routers alone, but patience, teaching, and a willingness to design services that do not assume every citizen is young, comfortable online, and in no hurry to be left behind. It also requires measuring the right thing: not the share of households that hold a contract, but the share of people who can actually do the things that matter to them — book a doctor, pay a bill, talk to a grandchild. The first digital divide was solved, in the rich world, by rolling out infrastructure. The second will be solved, if it is solved at all, by showing every older and rural resident that the online world is built for them too — not merely available to them.

Questions 1-4

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B, C, D and E from the list of headings below.

List of Headings i. Beyond the cable: access is not the same as fluency ii. Geography and age — the two fault lines iii. The human cost — and a surprising buffer iv. How governments have begun (and failed to keep pace) v. The first digital divide: who got a connection vi. Why rural broadband is cheaper to install vii. The rise of artificial intelligence in schools

1. Paragraph B: ____
2. Paragraph C: ____
3. Paragraph D: ____
4. Paragraph E: ____

Questions 5-8

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

5. What is the "second digital divide"? A. The gap between urban and rural electricity supply. B. Inequalities in devices, skills and the ability to use online services, beyond mere connection. C. The difference between two internet providers. D. The gap between smartphone and tablet owners.

6. According to the passage, who shows the lowest internet use among older people? A. Older people in cities with high incomes. B. Older people in rural areas, with lower income and schooling. C. Young professionals aged ten. D. Students in Nordic countries.

7. What is "digital back-feeding"? A. Older people teaching technology to children. B. Younger family members teaching their elders to use digital tools. C. Installing fibre-optic cables backwards. D. Returning devices to shops.

8. What does the writer conclude about solving the second divide? A. More masts and routers alone will solve it. B. It requires teaching, patience and inclusive design, not just infrastructure. C. It will solve itself as people age. D. It is impossible to close.

Questions 9-13

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer?

Write:

• TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
• FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
• NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

9. In the Nordic countries, internet use is near-universal in both towns and countryside.
10. Among people aged sixty and over, internet use in the middle-income country mentioned was about three in four in 2025.
11. The "digital back-feeding" effect works equally well for older men and women.
12. Older adults are the slowest-growing group of new internet users.
13. Greece has the widest urban-rural internet gap in the world.

Questions 14-15

Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

The first divide was about whether a household could get a (14) __________ at all. The second is about devices, skills and the ability to act online — a problem the writer describes as being less about cables than about (15) __________.

Answers & Explanations

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