Implications of the financial crisis to the digital divide across European union

During the last years European countries are facing one of the worst financial and economic crises with multiple and significant social effects. At the same time the worldwide increase of Information and Communications Technologies´ (ICT) adoption, demonstrates the importance of the new technologies in modern societies. Indeed the adoption of ICT has been characterized as one of the key factors for worldwide economy growth and social development. On the other hand the different levels of ICT´s adoption between nations or/and societies, generates disparities between communities, or the so called Digital Divide. In this paper, it is examined whether the financial and economic crisis influences the broadband Digital Divide between European countries. Indicative financial and economic indicators have been selected, such as the level of unemployment rate and the Gross Domestic Product growth, in order to explore the influence of the crisis in national economies and societies. In addition indicative ICT indicators have been determined, focusing on the broadband service penetration and the deployment of new broadband network infrastructures across European countries. The findings of our analysis do not indicated any sign of strong correlation between the growth of broadband penetration and the impacts of the crisis. It seems that the financial and economic crisis has no direct impact on the growth of broadband adoption in European countries that have influenced most by the recent crisis.