A Longitudinal Perspective on Digital Skills for Everyday Life: Measurement and Empirical Evidence
Our everyday lives are increasingly digital: We meet with friends, search for information, watch films, and buy goods online. This generates data that is automatically collected and analyzed. The ability to deal with the resulting algorithmically selected and personalized content is essential to ben...
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Cogitatio
2024-05-01
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| Series: | Media and Communication |
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| Online Access: | https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/8159 |
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| author | Kiran Kappeler |
| author_facet | Kiran Kappeler |
| author_sort | Kiran Kappeler |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Our everyday lives are increasingly digital: We meet with friends, search for information, watch films, and buy goods online. This generates data that is automatically collected and analyzed. The ability to deal with the resulting algorithmically selected and personalized content is essential to benefit from digital technologies, and for this, digital skills are crucial. Studies focusing on digital skills, their antecedents, and consequences have mostly relied on self-reported, one-time measurements. A deeper understanding of the measures of digital skills and the role such digital skills play in everyday life and over time is needed. To address these gaps, this article compares self-reported measures of digital skills and knowledge of datafication and algorithmization in everyday internet use and maps the evolution of their relevance for digital everyday life. To do so, this articles analyzes data from multiple cross-sectional surveys conducted from 2011 to 2023 with representative samples of Swiss internet users. First, the findings indicate that self-reported skills reflect internet users’ knowledge of algorithmization and datafication in everyday internet use. This renders the measure a decent tool for empirical studies. Second, the findings show that digital skills are associated with socioeconomic background, cyber-optimistic attitudes, usage time, use of social media, health trackers, voice assistants, ChatGPT, and feeling included in the information society. These relationships varied over time. This article provides longitudinal empirical evidence on the relevance of digital skills in a highly digitized country. The findings highlight that promoting digital skills can contribute to fostering more inclusive digital societies. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-bb9ddb069a3c4045951bd4f6baa9ed90 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2183-2439 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-05-01 |
| publisher | Cogitatio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Media and Communication |
| spelling | doaj-art-bb9ddb069a3c4045951bd4f6baa9ed902025-08-20T01:55:08ZengCogitatioMedia and Communication2183-24392024-05-0112010.17645/mac.81593527A Longitudinal Perspective on Digital Skills for Everyday Life: Measurement and Empirical EvidenceKiran Kappeler0Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, SwitzerlandOur everyday lives are increasingly digital: We meet with friends, search for information, watch films, and buy goods online. This generates data that is automatically collected and analyzed. The ability to deal with the resulting algorithmically selected and personalized content is essential to benefit from digital technologies, and for this, digital skills are crucial. Studies focusing on digital skills, their antecedents, and consequences have mostly relied on self-reported, one-time measurements. A deeper understanding of the measures of digital skills and the role such digital skills play in everyday life and over time is needed. To address these gaps, this article compares self-reported measures of digital skills and knowledge of datafication and algorithmization in everyday internet use and maps the evolution of their relevance for digital everyday life. To do so, this articles analyzes data from multiple cross-sectional surveys conducted from 2011 to 2023 with representative samples of Swiss internet users. First, the findings indicate that self-reported skills reflect internet users’ knowledge of algorithmization and datafication in everyday internet use. This renders the measure a decent tool for empirical studies. Second, the findings show that digital skills are associated with socioeconomic background, cyber-optimistic attitudes, usage time, use of social media, health trackers, voice assistants, ChatGPT, and feeling included in the information society. These relationships varied over time. This article provides longitudinal empirical evidence on the relevance of digital skills in a highly digitized country. The findings highlight that promoting digital skills can contribute to fostering more inclusive digital societies.https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/8159algorithmizationdataficationdigital inclusiondigital inequalitydigital skillsonline surveyskills measurement |
| spellingShingle | Kiran Kappeler A Longitudinal Perspective on Digital Skills for Everyday Life: Measurement and Empirical Evidence Media and Communication algorithmization datafication digital inclusion digital inequality digital skills online survey skills measurement |
| title | A Longitudinal Perspective on Digital Skills for Everyday Life: Measurement and Empirical Evidence |
| title_full | A Longitudinal Perspective on Digital Skills for Everyday Life: Measurement and Empirical Evidence |
| title_fullStr | A Longitudinal Perspective on Digital Skills for Everyday Life: Measurement and Empirical Evidence |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Longitudinal Perspective on Digital Skills for Everyday Life: Measurement and Empirical Evidence |
| title_short | A Longitudinal Perspective on Digital Skills for Everyday Life: Measurement and Empirical Evidence |
| title_sort | longitudinal perspective on digital skills for everyday life measurement and empirical evidence |
| topic | algorithmization datafication digital inclusion digital inequality digital skills online survey skills measurement |
| url | https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/8159 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kirankappeler alongitudinalperspectiveondigitalskillsforeverydaylifemeasurementandempiricalevidence AT kirankappeler longitudinalperspectiveondigitalskillsforeverydaylifemeasurementandempiricalevidence |