## 1 Introduction
### Background: Digital Divide and Digital Inclusion  
Digital divide is currently understood as the difference between individuals, companies, regions, and countries in the access and use of ICT [9]. It consists of a difference of approach to technological tools and services such as mobile telephony, computers and the internet that generates an inequality of opportunities to satisfy needs and improve living conditions, which is intolerable in a democratic society. This concept has been popular since 1995 when it was used in the Falling through the Net report of the U.S. Department of Commerce to express unequal access to emerging ICT between and within countries [10]. The digital divide had two dimensions in first studies about the subject, one related to whom has access to technology and another that emphasizes inequality in the skills to use technology among those who have access, as [PERSON] and [PERSON] [11] first stated in their pioneering study, now classic, on research trends in this matter. Later researchers, such as [PERSON]' et al. [6], decompose the use dimension into two: technical skills, on the one hand, and high-level use in complex situations such as education and commerce, on the other. In contrast, the concept of digital inclusion emerged referring to the objective and the process of implementing measures by a government or a public or private entity to bring the knowledge and use of ICT closer to those who do not already have it [12]. There is a consensus that the debate on digital inclusion is not only about people being connected, but it should also focus on the degree and models of use of ITC [13] and the conditioning factors [14]. Hence, actions to bridge the digital divide must be directed towards diverse aspects, depending on the differences arising from the available resources to access ICT or from geographic, demographic, educational, socioeconomic and cultural disparities that condition the ability and skills to use these technologies. The unforeseen and sudden phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted in all its rawness the reality where the digital divide not only has a social nature but also a territorial difference that overlaps as a second layer to each of these specific starting situations in a transversal and decisive way. This is the digital territorial divide, which occurs not only between countries but also within them, between urban and rural areas, and in particular between unpopulated or low-population territories compared to the rest. Depending on the place of residence, access to the internet will be available or not and that access will be of higher or lower quality, regardless of the demographic and socioeconomic profile of the individual or user group. The paradox of this territorial difference is that rural communities need more and better digital connectivity to compensate for their remoteness, but the fact we face is that these communities are generally less and worse connected by technologies and, therefore, their inhabitants and their companies are less digitally included. For example, rural broadband coverage is lower than national coverage in all the states of the European Union without exception, and just over a half of rural households (52.3%) had access to next-generation high-speed services in 2018 [15]. In short, the digital divide in connectivity and use is greater among the rural population, which also has by means of their age a greater exposure to the risks and consequences of COVID-19, creating an important pocket of marginalization and social exclusion. Older adults in rural areas are among the most likely to be left out of any creative and technologically based adaptation to meet social and other needs during this crisis. Additionally, as people stay home to slow the spread of COVID-19, inequalities in the loneliness of rural seniors are exacerbated, especially among those who do not have opportunitiesto connect virtually [16].