The common belief is that poor people have little or no access to the high technology that's now taking over popular culture. But PNS correspondent Charles Jones says the divide is isn't digital but something more complicated. Jones is a father of two whose writings have been featured in publications nationwide.

There has been much talk about low income communities being technologically disadvantaged victims of a "digital divide." This may be especially and most damagingly true in the public school systems. But there is really no digital divide in any of the projects or inner city neighborhoods I've been to lately.

With just a small adjustment of perspective, one can see that high tech electronics are everywhere, including the ghetto. From widescreens, DVD's, two-way paging, broadcast-quality camcorders and nine-CD disc changers to Sega's Dreamcast (which comes with a built-in modem for Internet play) and Nintendo -- you say it, they've got it. I'm paying half for my cousin's PS2 this Christmas.

What seems to be missing in the 'hood is the impulse to use high technology to interact or "network" with the rest of the world (granted the world has never beaten a path to our doors). Of the people I know who have computers, only a couple have Internet access. Most use their computers as CD players, gaming consoles or word processors.

We may be making too much fuss over the supposed differences in technological access between the haves and the have-nots, because access is not the problem.

I have a cousin who has a computer at home with the whole Gateway hookup. Her daughter Latrice is a 19-year-old student at San Francisco City College, who says she has e-mail but hardly uses it and checks it only once or twice a week.

"I use the Internet to check out colleges and put in applications," she says. That's it. Her little brother also has e-mail, but the computer to him is still nothing more than a gaming console and word processor.

"Nah, we don't need the Internet," Latrice says, "it's more of a leisure thing." No constant chatting, no e-mail forwarding or catching a wave, but then no one was pen-palling their dear friend suzieq067 in Nebraska, or peering into peepingtom316's photo albums before they got the computer. Why would that change all of a sudden?

I know a man, Josh, a 27-year-old office technician who studied computer programming and then joined the Army where he learned electronics. But despite being a high-tech handyman, he says, "I don't even use my computer at home. Matter of fact I cut off the cord on the mouse, and my daughter rolls it all over the place."

Doesn't it seem a little strange for a computer technician not to have an operating computer at home? "It's a cool living and all that dog," he confides, "but I don't need that mess."

Studying, shopping, communicating with the outside world if they need to -- inner city folks are doing it the same way they've done it for years, and they get along just fine.

The mainstream is quick to assume that people in the ghetto have nothing, but what I see are people who don't feel the need to be "connected." The Internet is just "another bill" to pay for people who sometimes have trouble making rent. But the latest music, video game systems, etc.? They got it, or are gettin' it.