The digital divide is a term that refers to the gap between people who have access to modern information and communications technology (ICT) to people that don’t/have restricted access to it. The digital divide originally started to describe the division between people who had access to telephones/didn’t have access in the late 20th century. However after the 1990’s, it became used to describe the division between people with/without internet access. Some ways to reduce the digital divide though are to get a good bandwidth internet service, and get devices with internet that meet everyone’s needs. There can also be educational pathways on the use of the internet and other digital technologies to help inform the public, as well as good quality tech support.

Computing innovation is a wonderful thing, with many beneficial yet harmful effects. Some of the many beneficial effects of computing innovation are machines that vastly improve the medical field which save many lives, advertising on the internet, the spread of information, and a way for people to share and spread their ideas. However, some negative effects of computing innovation are the loss of privacy and dependence on technology. On top of that, in the modern world, more and more jobs are being replaced by artificial intelligence and robots, which cause more and more people to become unemployed. There are also lots of negative health consequences with computing innovation. One unintended consequence of computing innovation though is that it was originally created in 1989 as a way for the scientific community to share information more faster and efficiently, but since then it has improved into something greater. Targeted advertising was also originally intended for businesses to make profit, but the collection of private information and incentives can be abused. Along with that, although machine learning and data mining benefit many fields, the research may be susceptible to biases and discrimination.

Computer bias is the term we use to refer to computer systems that “systematically and unfairly discriminate against certain individuals or groups of” people in favor of others. For example, a facial recognition algorithm may be able to recognize white people more easily than other people of other ethnicities because white people were used more in the training process.

Crowdsourcing is obtaining work, information, or opinions from large groups of people from the internet, social media, and smartphone apps. It also allows companies to save time and money while collecting information from different types of people around the world, as well as help with cost savings and speed people in an “in-house team may not have.” There are many different kinds of people involved in crowdsourcing - from people who are paid to people who voluntarily do it. Some advantages of crowdsourcing include faster and more broader forms of advertising for companies. For example, instead of reaching out to smaller groups of people, companies can reach out to millions of people through social media and the internet to ensure they get a variety of information. Companies may also get more attention from this. However, some results of crowdsourcing can be easily biased based on the certain group of people being sources, and the right type of crowd may be hard to find. Some of the main types of crowdsourcing also include wisdom crowdsourcing (that large groups of people are smaller than individual experts - e.g. finding out the number of coins in a jar), creation crowdsourcing (used for a collaborative effort to create, design, or build something), voting crowdsourcing (used when voting and for polls - like politics ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ), and funding crowdsourcing (used to raise money by collecting small amounts of money from a large amount of funders).

Safe computing is a combination of computer software and security settings. There are many ways to keep your device safe, some which include; keeping your antivirus up to date, using the internet safely, protecting your data and information, and backing up your data. On top of that, you can also use stronger passwords, minimize storage of sensitive data and information, avoid scammers/scam links and websites, and protect your information when emailing/calling someone.