Vol. 7, Issue 2, Part G (2025)

Digital expansion is often celebrated as a neutral and inclusive force capable of reducing long-standing social inequalities. Yet lived social realities suggest a more uneven story. This paper examines the digital divide not simply as a problem of access to devices or internet connectivity but as a deeper process of cultural exclusion that mirrors and reproduces existing structures of power. Drawing on sociological theory and secondary sources the study argues that digital inequality operates through language, symbolic competence, confidence and everyday cultural familiarity with digital spaces. For many marginalized communities digital platforms remain unfamiliar, intimidating, socially coded in ways that privilege middle-class and dominant cultural norms. As a result exclusion persists even where formal access exists. Using a conceptual framework informed by Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas of cultural capital and habitus along with insights from power and governance perspectives, the paper demonstrates how digital systems subtly discipline users while rewarding those already socially advantaged. The analysis highlights how caste, class, gender and educational background shape patterns of digital participation affecting access to online education, e-governance, welfare services and public expression. Rather than enabling equal citizenship, digitalization often deepens feelings of dependency, invisibility and loss of agency among marginalized groups. The paper concludes that bridging the digital divide requires more than technological solutions. Without attention to cultural inclusion, language diversity, socially grounded digital literacy digital growth risks becoming another mechanism of exclusion. A sociological approach is therefore essential for reimagining digital citizenship as genuinely inclusive rather than formally universal.