What do we know about youth's access to and use of digital technologies?

• Author: European Institute for Gender Equality (EU body or agency)
• Pages: 25-45

3. What do we know about youths access to and use of digital technologies?

25

Gender equality and youth: opportunities and risks of digitalisation

3. What do we know about youth’s access

to and use of digital technologies?

(29) https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/en/isoc_i_esms.htm

This section presents an over view of quantitative

data and findings from literature on how young

people access digital technologies and how those

technologies are used for social and political par-

ticipation. It also includes an analysis of available

data on the risks experienced by young women

and men when using digital media. The insights

on data gaps are presented in Annex III: Analysis

of current data gaps.

3.1. How and why do youth use

digital technologies?

Understanding access to digital technologies, or

lack thereof, is important, as research has shown

that gradations in frequency of internet use (from

non and low frequency users through to weekly

and daily users) are found to map well onto a pro-

gression in the take-up of online opportunities

among young people (from basic through mod-

erate to broad and then all-round users). Differ-

ences in internet use matter, as they contribute

to inclusion and exclusion (Livingstone & Helsper,

2007; Ólafsson, Livingstone, & Haddon, 2014).

On the one hand, digital inclusion or exclusion

often mirror some of the struc tural inequalities

observed in other areas of society (for example,

people with a lower level of education having

lower access to information and participation).

On the other hand, social inequalities intersect

with divides in digital access and result in dispar-

ities in online activities, with children who have

a greater autonomy of use and longer online ex-

perience also using the internet for a wider range

of activ ities (Mascheroni & Ólafsson, 2016).

Demographic, use and exper tise variables are

all shown to play a role in accounting for varia-

tions in the breadth and depth of internet use.

The literature supports the idea that beyond ac-

cess, a set of attitudes and wider know-how af-

fects digital skills and therefore digital participa-

tion (Correa, 2016; Livingstone & Helsper, 2007).

Overall, access to and use of digital technlogies

goes hand in hand with the level of an individu-

als digital skills and their motivation to use and

enhance those skills.

Gender is an important factor to both levels

and types of digital skills

Digital societies require digital competence in or-

der to ensure full participation. As increasingly rec-

ognised, digital par ticipation in society depends

not so much on access itself, but rather on digital

competence and the opportunities that come with

it (Ferrari, 2017). A debate on which digital com-

petencies are essential to this participation, none-

theless, is not settled, par tially due to the fast pace

of digitalisation and partially due to the diversity

of concepts or lack of comparable data.

Across the various concepts used to define digital

skills (Meri-Tuulia, Antero, & Suv i-Sadetta, 2017 ),

evidence in this sub-section is anchored on the

performance-based digital-skills indicators. Ac-

cording to Eurostat (29), an indicator based on se-

lected activities in using digital technologies can

be considered a proxy for the digital competen-

cies and skills of individuals (see more in Annex

II, Proposed list of BPfA indicators). The overall

digital-skills indicator measures performance in

four specific areas.

1. Information skills (e.g. retrieve, analyse and

judge information).

2. Communication skills (e.g. share resources,

link and collaborate with others through dig-

ital tools, cross-cultural awareness).

3. What do we know about youths access to and use of digital technologies?

European Institute for Gender Equality26

3. Problem-solving skills (e.g. make informed de-

cisions on the most appropriate digital tools,

solve conceptual and technical problems, up-

date own and others competence).

4. Software skills for content manipulation (e.g.

create and edit new content, produce creative

expressions, media outputs and program-

ming, deal with licences).

Young people in the EU are the most digitally

skilled generation, with 56 % of women and 58 %

of men aged 16-24 holding above-basic digital

skills and the rest of those aged 16-24 having

basic or low digital skills or their skills could not

be assessed. In comparison, around one third of

the population aged 25-54 have above-basic dig-

ital skills, whereas the others in this age group

tend to have either low or basic digital skills. The

digital-skill levels are counted in such a way that

those with above-basic digital skills are able to

perform more than one activity out of four areas

of digital activities, whereas those with, for exam-

ple, low digital skills have no skills in one to three

of the four areas. Figure 1 shows that the digital

inclusiveness of our societies still has consider-

able barriers that need to be removed. A large

part of the EU youth (and even more so in other

age groups) would benefit from improving their

skills (up-skilling).

The level of digital skills of the EU youth, as not-

ed in 2017, shows a fast-improving situation, with

a somewhat faster pace observed for men than

for women. In just a couple years, from 2015

to 2017, the share of women aged 16-24 with

above-basic digital skills increased by 4 percent-

age points and that of young men by 7 percent-

age points. Similarly, the share of the population

in older age groups (25-54) having above-basic

Figure 1: Levels of digital skills of individuals, by sex and age group (EU-28, %, 2015, 2017)

15 15

27 25

15 15

26 24

26 23

30 27

30 29

31 29

56 58

33 38 52 51 30 34

0

20

40

60

80

100

Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men

16-24 25-54 16-24 25-54

2017 2015

No skills Low Basic Above basic Could not be assessed

Source: Eurostat, ISOC [isoc_sk_dskl_i].

NB: Digital skills are measured in relation to performed activities across 4 domains of digital competencies: information,

communication, problem-solving and software skills. Individuals with above-basic level of skills display such levels of skills in

all four domains; individuals with a basic level of skills have at least one basic levels of skills across four domains; individuals

with low level of skills miss some type of basic skills, i.e. have from one to three no skills across four domains; individuals

with no skills did not perform any activities across all four domains, despite declaring having used the internet at least once

during the last 3 months. Digital skills could not be assessed for those individuals who have not used the internet in the last

3 months. For this gure, EIGE has used numerical data rounded to zero decimals by Eurostat and therefore percentages

might not add up to 100 %.