Integrating digital divide and diffusion of innovations approaches, this study analyzes individual-level and market-level influences on the 8-year cumulative adoption of the mobile phone in one developing country. Considering each year separately, as tests of the typical digital divide model, age, education, economic condition, Internet access, and household size were significant divides in all years; employment, marital status, and urbanness were so only in about half the years, and sex in none of the years. However, a diffusion of innovations approach revealed some differences in demographic influences on mobile phone adoption across three adoption categories. Changing mobile phone market conditions were associated with varying adoption levels, and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita correlated with percent adoption except during the global economic crisis.

Digital inequality can take many forms. Four forms studied here are access to Internet, use of different devices, extent of usage, and engagement in different Internet activities. However, it is not clear whether sociodemographic factors, or devices, are more influential in usage and activities. Results from an unfamiliar context show that there are significant sociodemographic influences on access, device, usage, and activities, and differences in activities by device type and usage. While sociodemographic differences are more influential, device type can increase likelihood of use for some "capital enhancing" activities, but only for a computer. Thus, although mobile Internet is available for those on the wrong side of the digital divide, these users do not engage in many activities, decreasing potential benefits. © 2013 International Communication Association.

As Internet use grows globally, the digital divide has shifted beyond concerns about access and adoption to more subtle questions of skill, usage, and capital, and to new venues such as social networking sites (SNSs). Do digital divides persist across adoption/non-adoption of SNSs, across different SNSs, and across different capital-enhancing activities used on those SNSs? The current study analyzes a context where social ties are more salient for resource access due to untrustworthy institutions, and large gaps exist between elites and non-elites. Demographic divides characterize the 31% of Armenian adults using two major SNSs in 2013: Facebook and Odnoklassniki. Facebook is used more for getting information, while Odnoklassniki more for gaming. However, the divides in SNS usage are much greater than in activity use, with implications for capital enhancement and stratification.

The “device divide” occurs when uses of the Internet vary substantially by device. While the mobile phone was welcomed as a way to reduce the general digital divide, much early research presumed that mobile Internet was essentially inferior to personal-computer-based Internet in terms of possible online activities and related benefits. Given ongoing developments in devices, online activities, and socio-demographic differences, we reassess the device divide. After reviewing the concept, and considering mobile phone capabilities that could influence activities, followed by summarizing changes in device usage and online activities in the United States, we analyze the device divide from 2011 to 2019 in Armenia. Over time, use of mobile Internet separately and combined with personal computer Internet grew, and differences in online activity use withered, raising issues of whither device divide research. Nonetheless, in all years, there are continuing demographic-based digital divides after controlling for device divides.