Digital Literacy: What It Is, Characteristics, And What It Is For
Digital literacy is an important concept to understand the reality of how fucking all segments of society are able to cope well with the use of electronic devices connected to the Internet.
In this article we will explore this concept of digital literacy and we will see what elements it comprises and how it is related to the detection of false information on the Internet.
Digital literacy is defined as the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information securely and appropriately through digital technologies This means that it goes beyond the ability to basically use a cell phone or computer.
To achieve reading and writing of digital media from multiple media such as television, computers, tablets and smartphones and through different forms such as written texts, graphics, infographics, audios, videos, hypertexts or a combination of these, it is It is necessary to take into account that people require various learning concepts such as technological literacy, media literacy, multimedia literacy or computer literacy.
This situation means that people who are not trained in Information and Communications Technology, in their work, educational, social and even personal world, become a marginalized class of citizens, and therefore have fewer possibilities to develop and function at all social and work levels. This gap is much larger in poor countries and in sectors where the development of cities is much more advanced than in towns and rural areas where there is no technological infrastructure or knowledge.
In these last two years, deficits in digital literacy have taken center stage due to the consequences of overcrowding due to the COVID19 pandemic, since Many education and work activities had to be transferred to virtual mode or teleworking, given the impossibility of traveling to educational centers and workplaces in person. Although on the other hand there is no doubt that with the pandemic in full expansion it would have been impossible to think of the world without computing, without teleworking scenarios, without online schools or without apps to reduce the impact of the lack of education or work for people who have access to digital technology.
It is necessary to differentiate to achieve digital literacy and understand the role of training in the functioning of society. On the one hand, it is required to have basic knowledge such as knowing how to use email, a spreadsheet or a text editor, which make up knowledge called “digital competence” (Digital Literacy) and are basic in the 21st century, but not sufficient for a competitive society like the current one, particularly in certain professions.
On the other hand, in each profession a type of problem is solved, and most problems allow many ways to be solved, but not all solutions can be implemented on a computer. It is necessary to take into account that More emphasis should be placed on the computer science knowledge (hardware, networks, databases, programming, applications) necessary to develop these ideas This double vision (way of thinking and knowledge of the bases of computing) is often called “computer competence.”
What is the importance of digital literacy today?
The lack of digital literacy has been described as an element that has affected communication in the context of recent phenomena such as fake news of COVID 19 vaccines and the 2020 presidential elections in the United States.
In fact, there are several studies that indicate the existence of factors that could indicate a relationship between digital illiteracy and the tendency to share unreliable information on social networks.
Based on the deficit theory, it is considered that people who can fall for “hoaxes” and false information are those who They do not have a sufficient level of knowledge to distinguish between true information and false information In this dimension, it is also important to consider the possible absence of scientific literacy and media literacy.
One of the main reasons why older adults might believe fake news is that older adults may have a lower level of digital, scientific, and media literacy, which could make it difficult for people to identify content with false information, such as images that have been edited. It could be considered that an increase in digital literacy could help reduce fake news headlines.
Another theory states that people They may believe false information that is assimilated to their preexisting beliefs or worldview Likewise, an excessive belief in one’s own knowledge (seeing it as superior to that of others) and the tendency to receptivity to pseudo-deep content (that is, content that has a high number of words that may not have any concrete meaning in a phrase) can predispose people to believe fake news.
In this way, these people could have difficulties in identifying lack of precision in the content they find in the information on social networks, which makes it “fit” into all types of belief systems
Less willingness to spread “hoaxes” online?
It has been thought for some time that social media users with a low level of digital literacy may be more likely to be deceived by virtual misinformation. However, Being digitally literate does not necessarily imply that that person is interested in sharing truthful information on social networks, revealing that there is a disconnection between truthful information and the intentions to spread content on the networks.
In the study carried out by Sirlin and his collaborators at MIT in 2020, two measures were used to measure the relationship between digital literacy and the tendency to share truthful information on networks.
The first measure of digital literacy is based on the traditional definition of this concept, which focuses on have basic digital skills required to successfully find information on the Internet To measure it, a questionnaire was used with questions regarding Internet terms and attitudes towards technology.
A second questionnaire focused directly on social media literacy, and measures this construct through questions that ask users about the information they decide to share on social media. This methodology would allow identifying people’s susceptibility to fake news on social networks: If a person is not able to identify that there are no editorial standards for sharing information on social networks, there would be a lower level of skepticism regarding the quality of the information that is shared on the networks.
Research findings
The first conclusion of the study indicates that A higher level of digital literacy enables people to have greater discernment in the face of false and true information It was found that there is a correlation between being familiar with the Internet and being able to understand the Facebook news algorithm. The size of this correlation is also comparable to the correlation found with procedural news knowledge and analytical thinking.
A second finding allowed us to observe that the most digitally literate network users do not have greater discernment between true and false news. Nor is there an important correlation between familiarity and knowledge of the Internet with procedural knowledge of the news or with analytical thinking, a situation that may be curious because an important relationship has usually been found between analytical thinking and discernment. of fake news in the virtual world.
A third finding of this study focused on observing whether the political ideology of the participants (Republican or Democrat, in the case of this study) can determine the tendency to believe and share false information in the virtual world. It was possible to identify that there is no evidence to justify a relationship between affiliation to a specific political ideology and the discernment of truthful information or the ability to choose truthful information on social networks.
Although it was not observed that developing digital literacy guarantees greater discernment about what to share on social networks, this contrasts with the usefulness of procedural knowledge of the news, which is acquired through practice, and which is positively related to the ability to identify false information in virtual media and with the intentions of sharing true information.
This fact would allow us to conclude that it is preferable to focus on educational interventions in which the development of procedural knowledge of the news prevails, which would be developed through practice and is not necessarily acquired consciously, beyond digital literacy. to prevent the proliferation of false information on the networks.
This could imply that although the development of digital literacy It becomes necessary in contexts in which technology is needed to guarantee better living conditions For people, it is also essential to complement this work with education to discern between true and false information in times in which the lack of information can end up affecting people to a greater extent, especially in contexts such as the coronavirus pandemic. , in which people can be guided to make decisions that directly affect health due to the presence of an information bias.
