Can Anybody Help Me?: Using Community Help Desk Call Records to Examine the Impact of Digital Divides During a Global Pandemic

Title of the Paper

Can Anybody Help Me?: Using Community Help Desk Call Records to Examine the Impact of Digital Divides During a Global Pandemic

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Digital Divide, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Pandemic Response
• Keywords: Digital Divide, ICT Usage, Pandemic Response, Remote Technical Support, Community IT Help Education, Social Services

Research Background and Questions

• Identified Problems or Challenges:

  • The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital tools but also widened the digital divide.
  • The digital divide involves not only issues of device and internet access but also the complex interplay between information access, operational skills, and community support systems.
  • There is a lack of research on how community and institutional ecosystems influence the selection, deployment, and use of digital technologies.

• Significance:

  • The digital divide affects the effectiveness of online education, healthcare, and social services, with long-term implications for economic, social, and health stability.
  • Emergency distribution of devices and internet during the pandemic has exacerbated disparities along social and racial lines.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  • To study the digital divide during the pandemic from a new perspective by analyzing community IT help desk call records to gain deeper insights into the forms of the digital divide.
  • Related work focuses on the community structure of digital skill development and the design of various remote support tools, but there has been little in-depth exploration of issues arising from low technical proficiency among the general population.

Proposed Solution

• Proposed Solution:

  • Conduct qualitative analysis of community IT help desk call records to reveal that technical issues are not limited to devices but also involve the complexity of social and organizational ecosystems.
  • Emphasize the need to coordinate multiple stakeholders to establish effective communication and information-sharing frameworks.

• Innovative Aspects:

  • Explore how the technical demands triggered by the pandemic have created a digital divide that goes beyond physical access issues to include skills, understanding of complex tasks, and community support structures.
  • Provide a novel perspective through data analysis of actual help records, complementing previous survey-based studies on the digital divide.

• Implementation Steps and Key Techniques:

  • Data Collection: Record the content of calls to community IT help desks.
  • Coding and Analysis: Develop a codebook and conduct two rounds of qualitative coding to identify types of call issues and their influencing factors.
  • Analyze networks of co-occurring barriers to uncover the root causes of user issues and the complex characteristics of the technical ecosystem.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:

  • Analysis of call records revealed four main types of technical issues: technical setup problems, missing information issues, task understanding challenges, and software application problems.
  • "External dependency" was observed as a significant contributing factor to user challenges, including fragmented information across organizations and lack of inter-organizational collaboration.
  • Women, as the primary technical support roles within households, played a central role in resolving complex issues.

• Advantages:

  • Provides new insights into the complexity of technical ecosystems, highlighting the mismatch between users' digital skills and technical configurations.
  • Offers practical methods and design suggestions for community technical support.

• Experimental/Evaluation Results:

  • Qualitative analysis confirmed that even with device and internet access, other issues such as fragmented information and task complexity still hinder effective problem resolution.
  • Most technical issues (e.g., device or network configuration problems) were resolved in only 28% of cases.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Data was collected from a specific geographic region and did not directly include the perspectives of those seeking help.
  • Future research should expand investigations across cultures and regions and collect direct feedback from users.
  • Comparative studies of different community and organizational models could help understand how the digital divide manifests in various contexts.
  • Broader integration of perspectives from help seekers, volunteers, community organizations, and government agencies will aid in translating research findings into actionable plans.

This study provides unique insights into the mechanisms of the digital divide during the pandemic and directions for addressing it, while offering valuable references for designing sustainable community technical support resources in the future.