A reaction essay is an essay that is written in response to something else. The initial topic that the writer is responding to could be anything from a speech that was heard to another essay to the latest breaking news event.
In eighties and nineties there was a growing concern that as people in the rich world would receive access to computers and all possible communication technologies, people in the poor part of the world would find themselves on the other side of the so-called digital divide. This idea of digital divide lives on until the present day.