2) What difference to all this might the 'digital divide' make?

To socioeconomically related access issues within a society?

The way people are divided right now is likely to only widen the digital divide of which we speak. The CofP of digital natives may be unlikely to let a digital immigrant into their ways and could become a very closed group indeed which stops the digital immigrants from developing their technological skills as they are unlikely to receive help from the digital natives. One of the main purposes of a CofP is social learning, so digital natives will arguably always keep eachother up to data on "the latest" when it comes to new websites, tools, online communities, gadgets and technologies while digital immigrants are running behind having great difficulty keeping up with the ever changing world of the digital natives.

This is deffinitely a problem when it comes to situation where the two group work together, like education, where the teachers (immigrants) are having great difficulty in uderstanding and therefore correctly addressing their pupils (natives). Educational institutions such as schools do introduce new IT facilities but are still finding it hard to keep up because the evolution of technologies is shared within the Digital Native CofP and not communicated to the immigrants in the same way.

This does assume that all the pupils (or anyone else from the digital-native's generation for that matter) are actually able to use and are familiar with these technology-inflicted social changesin their own lives. However, for economic reasons mainly, not all of these younger (under 28) people are zactually in a position where they have access to these technologies intheir own lives and there they might not be too keen on any changes made by mainstream society and, as a part of that, the educational system, as to what is expected from people of this generation as they aren't part of it and will have as much difficulty (and will be left behind just as much) as other age-specific digital immigrants. So basically, the divide bewteen natives and immigrants isn't just a matter of agegroup, but also of whether or not people have been able to adapt these changes.

To global access issues across countries and regions?

The digital divide between the western world and 3rd world countries is a huge one, mainly because in the western world the financial sithuation makes for a great percentage of the population to be able to use and familiarise themselves with digital technologies where in the third world the great mjority of people do not have access to these kind of technologies at all.

The situation is almost a much bigger version of the problem described above. The Western countries, all familiar with these technologies are contantly improving their technologies and the third world ends up limping behind. (At the moment they might

Fast forward a few decades where digital natives are the only people left in the western world: technologies has completely changed western society as a whole in the way we interacts as well as the way our social practises are shaped. While Western society has gotten into the habit of communicationg, socialising, delling, buying, educating and practising politics using these technologies it will differ even more from society AND POLITICS in the third world countries.

The two parts of the world will arguable, over the years, grow more and more seperate from eachother creating an even wider digital divide, and through this a wider divide in politics, economics, education, everything. Alienating the two from each other.