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The digital divide limits the flow of potential students through the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pipeline and into STEM careers. The digital divide is a dynamic and constantly evolving concept of digital exclusion that encompasses numerous dimensions and levels. The “usage access gap” and the “second-level divide” both account for differences in how digitally divided people actually use technology. In this study, we employ social cognitive theory as a framework to explore the impact of various kinds of technology usage on predominately minority students’ technology and application self-efficacy. Data were gathered over the course of a large-scale computing intervention that took place in an elementary school district in the southeastern United States. Results indicate that usage access gap activities and second-level divide activities, such as playing games or talking to friends online, may actually help increase students’ technology self-efficacy and computer application self-efficacy. Entertainment and social networking activities provide students with positive direct experiences with technology, which may help close this dimension/level of the digital divide over time. Future computing interventions should consider establishing dedicated “computer recess” time to help digitally divided students increase their technology self-efficacy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has directly or indirectly impacted everyone around the globe. However, the pandemic and its long-term consequences have not been distributed evenly within societies. These disparities have in many cases intensified existing social and economic inequalities such as the uptake of novel digital technologies. This study investigates the influence of the pandemic on the acceptance of virtual reality (VR) hardware within the framework of the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the digital divide/inequality scholarship. A survey was designed to examine the perceived impact of COVID-19 on the potential adoption of VR hardware. Specifically, this study included variables related to perceived ease of using VR hardware (ease of use), perceived usefulness of VR hardware (usefulness), intention to use VR hardware (use intention), and intention to purchase VR hardware (purchase intention). The predictors included two digital divide variables (material access and VR experience) and two other variables (COVID-19 and demographic variables). A total of 298 participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. The results suggest that the perceived impacts of COVID-19 positively predicted participants’ perceived usefulness of VR hardware as well as their intention to use and purchase VR hardware.