The growth in 'underconnected' Californians should alarm us

[Commentary] At first glance, the latest data on California's digital divide looks like amazingly good news. A whopping 84 percent of Californians now have access to broadband internet at home, up 9 percentage points since 2014, according to a new Field Poll. At that rate, the digital divide -- the gulf between the information haves and have nots -- could be wiped out in less than three years. But most of those gains have come from increased smartphone use. In the past year alone, there's been a near doubling -- from 8 percent to 14 percent -- of state residents now online because of smartphones. Meanwhile, the percentage of Californians connecting to the internet via a laptop or a desktop has remained flat for several years.

It’s alarming that outside of smartphones, the same old digital divide persists and keeps minorities, the poor and many seniors from reaping the riches of the information age. The digital divide should be a call to Silicon Valley technologists, who are working on the next generation of smartphones and apps: Make smartphones even more useful. What else can you do? The digital divide is not about just about laptop brands and broadband speeds. It's about equality -- who gets access to information and opportunity that others take for granted. Those who are being left behind are doing their best to catch up by using smartphones. We shouldn't make it so hard.