# ICT in Rural Areas from the Perspective of Dairy Farming: A Systematic Review
## 3 Results
### Connectivity and Digital Inclusion (35 Documents)  
Connectivity was defined within the objectives of the European Union as the access to the high-speed web from any place [26]. The term \"digital inclusion\" was defined as each individual's degree of use of the different options and opportunities offered by the internet [27; 28]. In our current society, digital inclusion has become a key factor in terms of social equality because of the enormous advantages that the internet offers [29]. In spite of the importance of the ICT for social inclusion, economy, interpersonal bonds, education, the army, politics, and culture [1; 30; 31; 32; 33], there are still problems associated with the lack of connectivity and inclusion, which imply a new type of inequality called the \"digital divide\" [3; 34; 35; 36; 37]. These inequalities are internationally revealed among countries due to their different economic development, and within countries, through different social groups [38; 39; 40], affecting mainly those rural areas which have problems with the implementation of ultra-rapid internet [41; 42]. According to studies performed by [5; 34; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48; 49], two main lines of research can be distinguished in this field: Research about connectivity, which shows that there exist growing and persistent differences in data infrastructure quality between urban and rural areas, and research of inclusion, showing that the difficult diffusion of technologies and the average lower levels of education and skills in rural areas have a negative impact on the adoption and use. This is evidenced in research carried out by [35] in the province of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands, as they show examples of the necessity of high-quality bandwidth in rural areas. However, they also show that many rural citizens still present problems related to the lack of skills, capacities, and perseverance required by  
Figure 1: Conceptual map of dairy farmer’s expectations and needs. the ICT, which lead to the generation of disinterest, and as a consequence, to the lack of initiative in terms of bandwidth in some Dutch \"blank areas.\"  
Another clear example of these differences between the rural and the urban world can be seen in field studies developed by [50] in rural communities in Australia, namely in Boorowa and Crookwell (in New South Wales), where it is shown that in spite of the fact that the rural inhabitants understand and are willing to accept certain disadvantages (such as having to commute to urban nucleues in order to do the shopping), the low-quality or inexistent internet connection and at higher prices than in urban areas is not considered just a disadvantage, but a problem as serious as the lack of water or electricity. In fact, they show several examples of how these connection issues affect them in every aspect of their daily life: From education to health or businesses, among others. To authors such as [50; 51; 52], the rural digital exclusion is an unsolved problem which, in fact, is still increasing, since even though great amounts of resources have been intended to improve the infrastructure and foster digital participation, there still exists a number of problems related to the lowest levels of digital skills and knowledge, as well as fewer opportunities to develop these skills due to a bad data infrastructure, as made clear by [48; 53]. There are several coexisting factors related to the lack of skills: Demographic issues, income, age, level of education and digital literacy [54; 55; 30; 56; 57]. As an illustration of this situation, semi-structured interviews led by [30] in rural areas of Scotland show that despite the importance that the ICT has for rural businesses, there exist serious problems associated with low-quality or inexistent bandwidth infrastructures, as well as the rural inhabitants' lack of digital skills in several cases.