Evidence and measures of the digital usage divide from 40 million Windows devices

Abstract Digital infrastructure is crucial for economic opportunities, social inclusion, and civic participation, but benefits remain unevenly distributed. Existing measures, such as computer ownership and broadband adoption, do not capture the depth and variety of digital use. We develop measures using Microsoft telemetry collected during operating system updates from 40 million Windows devices in U.S. households. These measures provide greater coverage and granularity than existing commercial or government surveys. Device representations at the ZIP-code level reveal substantial variation in usage, including an urban-rural divide and disparities within narrowly defined Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Income and education correlate with these differences. These effects are large and suggest that digital usage gaps extend beyond the local availability of essential IT infrastructure. The findings call for interventions that complement infrastructure access with support for technology use and skills development. The resulting indices are publicly available to support future research on digital inequality.