Microsoft and university team maps U.S. digital usage gaps from telemetry of 40 million Windows devices
Authors built usage indices at ZIP-code level and found urban-rural gaps and differences within metro areas that correlate with income and education.
Researchers from Microsoft, Harvard Business School and the Wharton School published a study in Nature Communications on 9 November 2026. They developed measures of digital usage from Microsoft telemetry collected during operating system updates from 40 million Windows devices in U.S. households nature.com
Nature Communicationsnature.comOpen source ↗. According to the authors, the measures provide greater coverage and granularity than existing commercial or government surveys.
Why ownership metrics fall short
The authors note that digital infrastructure is crucial for economic opportunities, social inclusion and civic participation, but its benefits remain unevenly distributed. Existing measures, such as computer ownership and broadband adoption, do not capture the depth and variety of digital use, they write. The new indices describe how devices are actually used, not only whether a household has equipment or a connection.
The work was carried out by Mayana Pereira, Shane Greenstein, Raffaella Sadun, Prasanna Tambe, Lucia Ronchi Darre, Tammy Glazer, Allen Kim, Rahul Dodhia and Juan Lavista Ferres. The first four are listed as equal contributors.
Gaps by ZIP code and metro area
Device representations at the ZIP-code level reveal substantial variation in usage, including an urban-rural divide nature.com
Nature Communicationsnature.comOpen source ↗. Disparities are also found within narrowly defined Metropolitan Statistical Areas, so the differences are not limited to comparisons between regions. Income and education correlate with these differences.
The authors describe the effects as large. In their interpretation, they suggest that digital usage gaps extend beyond the local availability of essential IT infrastructure. On this basis they 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. The article is open access.
