Use in Society
Digital literacy helps people communicate and keep up with societal trends. Literacy in social network services and Web 2.0 sites helps people stay in contact with others, pass timely information and even sell goods and services. This is mostly popular among younger generations, though sites like LinkedIn have made it valuable to older professionals.
Digital literacy can also prevent people from believing hoaxes that are spread online or are the result of photo manipulation. E-mail frauds and phishing often take advantage of the digitally illiterate, costing victims money and making them vulnerable to identity theft.
Research has demonstrated that the differences in the level of digital literacy depend mainly on age and education level, while the influence of gender is decreasing(Hargittai, 2002; van Dijk, 2005; van Dijk and van Deursen, 2009). Among young people, in particular, digital literacy is high in its operational dimension (e.g. rapidly move through hypertext, familiarity with different kinds of online resources) while the skills to critically evaluate content found online show a deficit (Gui and Argentin, 2011).
Read more about this topic: Digital Literacy
Famous quotes containing the word society:
“One great Society alone on Earth,
The noble Living, and the noble Dead.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)