## 2 Literature Review  
A digital inequality is defined as the unequal use of digital technologies, which extends to unequal impacts and outcomes. The related concept is the digital divide, which represents the gap in the utilization and benefits of digital technologies between people, organizations, and governments. The need to close the digital divide was recognized by the UN in its 2016 announcement that the internet is a human right and that efforts to remove internet access are a violation of human rights [4]. Its importance has been evident during the COVID-19 period in the disparities between and within communities in accessing the internet for family needs, including schooling, health information, social contacts, and commercial services. Digital inequality is a complex phenomenon that has been formulated theoretically to include a range of types of access, cultural factors, socioeconomic and political aspects, and the importance of digital learning. A conceptual approach to access to digital technologies is to consider a sequence starting with motivation and extending to physical infrastructure, digital skills, and usage [5; 6; 7; 8]. These laddered elements were encompassed in a complex model of digital media under the category of \"access\", along with personal characteristics, resources, positional categories, and participation outcomes [6]. The present study model includes the ladder elements of physical access, usage, and participation outcomes. In digital inequality/digital divide research, low-level physical access has become prevalent or even ubiquitous, while inequalities persist in purposeful uses and societal outcomes [9]. Our study examines both the low-level physical access digital factors and the purposeful use of ICT at the individual and organizational levels. China's ICT growth can be classified into a succession of formative, developmental, and mature stages, with the formative stage ending around 2005, followed by a developmental stage until the mid-2010s, and finally a mature stage [10]. Throughout this progression, the central government adopted a top-down approach, seeking a balance between ICT for government control and improvement in economic prosperity. As China's exports grew significantly after 2000, businesses increasingly adopted ICT in order to participate in international supply chains and markets [11]. Yet, it is essential to recognize provincial unevenness and address the low levels of ICT usage among aged, undereducated, and rural, poor individuals [11; 12]. Another strand of the literature has considered the interplay of the internet and ICT with aspects of the Chinese economy. As e-commerce expanded, Chinese consumers experienced unequal access and use of it depending on demographic characteristics, including age, gender, college education, and urban residency [13]. Geographically, there was greater online shopping in eastern coastal areas compared to western provinces [14]. A spatially driven, fixed-effects analysis found that ICT is directly related to socioeconomic development and that rapid prominence of ICT in one region can negatively influence ICT growth in neighboring provinces, termed a \"spillover\" effect [15]. Recently, a study found that broadband bolstered the nation's economic growth more during the pandemic compared to former \"normal\" times [16]. Our research contributes to the existing literature by examining the purposeful use of ICT on e-commerce and IT services and providing a detailed spatial pattern analysis of how ICT infrastructure, use of ICT, e-commerce, and IT services have been developed across the provinces. China studies have also examined the spatial patterns in usage of the internet and ICT among the provinces through different approaches. In a study of China's rapid ICT growth from 2003 to 2008, location quotient (LQ) analysis was applied to map the ratios of provincial to national internet use, revealing provincial use differences as high as 7-fold, i.e., between Beijing and Tibet.