What started out as just a realm of entertainment, information and chat rooms, the internet has evolved into a gateway for accessing basic public services, and educational and economic opportunities. It is a lifeline that connects people to society; and society to them.
Imagine searching for a job, applying for an apartment or even trying to make a basic medical appointment—like blood work—without access to the internet and a reliable phone plan. What happens when you aren’t able to receive those important phone calls?
The answer is simple: Opportunities pass you by.
Alex MacDonnell, executive director of Stepping Stone—a Nova Scotia organization that provides programming and support for current and former sex workers—sees first-hand the barrier created by this digital divide.
“It’s so important. A phone used to be a want, and now it’s a need and it’s a safety measure,” says MacDonnell in a phone interview with The Coast. “A lot of our clients were missing meetings for jobs, doctors or even court because of this barrier. They were missing positive opportunities.”
Key to helping Stepping Stone get its clients connected has been a local organization called GEO Nova Scotia—short for Get Everyone Online—whose mission is to provide devices, internet and digital literacy to all Nova Scotians.
Matt Spurway is the executive director of GEO and says that if you don’t have digital inclusion—which encompasses having access to the internet, the devices you need you need to access the internet and basic skills to use them competently and safely—you are very much segregated from society; from education, from employment, from housing, from information and from each other.
In fact, digital inclusion was called the “Super Social Determinant of Health”, according to an article published in Nature in 2021.The paper recommends that healthcare systems should support individuals’ digital inclusion needs, including digital skills, stating “applications for employment, housing, and other assistance programs, each of which influences an individual’s health, are increasingly, and sometimes exclusively, accessible online.”
“The internet is the way that we reach almost everything these days, not unlike the way roads have been all along,” explains Spurway. “Having the internet is no more or less necessary than having roads that take you into town where all the shops and services are, where your job is, where your government is. It’s how you get connected to society.”
In the 1990s, we called the internet the “information superhighway,” and Spurway says that metaphor holds true. Imagine if everything is at the other end of that highway, but you don’t have a car or a bus pass or the money to pay for gas.
“It’s a huge problem for the people for whom it is a problem, and it’s a big problem for the rest of us as well,” says Spurway. “To have somewhere between 5 and 25 percent of the population unable to do what we expect them to be able to do means that they are cut out of participating—and that is usually folks who are more vulnerable and need more access to services.”
In 2024, GEO provided 27 devices and phone plans to clients of Stepping Stone.
“At the beginning they provided our program users with a year free of internet plus a Chromebook, and this past year, they have added phones and phone plans to their program,” says MacDonnell. “The huge difference is that a lot of our clients had pay-as-you-go, so by the end of the month they would run out of minutes. With this phone plan, they won’t be running out of minutes, they’ll have their phone for a whole year and so they won’t be missing those important phone calls.”
This article appears in Feb 1-28, 2025.