essay on digital literacy 100 words

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Essay on Digital Literacy – 10 Lines, 100 to 1500 Words

Essay on Digital Literacy: In today’s digital age, the ability to navigate and critically evaluate information online is more important than ever. Digital literacy encompasses a range of skills, from understanding how to use technology effectively to being able to discern credible sources from misinformation. In this essay, we will explore the importance of digital literacy in our daily lives, the challenges that come with it, and how we can improve our digital literacy skills to become more informed and responsible consumers of information in the digital world.

Table of Contents

Digital Literacy Essay Writing Tips

1. Start by defining digital literacy: Begin your essay by providing a clear definition of digital literacy. This will help set the tone for the rest of your essay and ensure that your readers understand the topic you are discussing.

2. Discuss the importance of digital literacy: Explain why digital literacy is important in today’s society. Discuss how it impacts various aspects of our lives, including education, work, and social interactions.

3. Highlight the benefits of digital literacy: Discuss the benefits of being digitally literate, such as improved communication skills, access to a wealth of information, and increased opportunities for learning and growth.

4. Address the challenges of digital literacy: Acknowledge the challenges that come with digital literacy, such as information overload, privacy concerns, and the digital divide. Discuss how individuals can overcome these challenges and become more digitally literate.

5. Provide examples of digital literacy in action: Give examples of how digital literacy is being used in different contexts, such as in education, business, and government. This will help illustrate the practical applications of digital literacy and show its relevance in today’s world.

6. Discuss the role of education in promoting digital literacy: Talk about the importance of incorporating digital literacy skills into the education system. Discuss how schools can help students develop these skills and prepare them for success in a digital world.

7. Offer tips for improving digital literacy: Provide practical tips for individuals looking to improve their digital literacy skills. This could include recommendations for online courses, tutorials, or resources that can help individuals become more proficient in using digital technologies.

8. Address the importance of critical thinking in digital literacy: Emphasize the importance of critical thinking skills in navigating the digital world. Discuss how individuals can evaluate information, discern fact from fiction, and make informed decisions online.

9. Conclude with a call to action: End your essay by encouraging readers to take steps to improve their digital literacy skills. Emphasize the importance of staying informed, being proactive, and continuously learning in order to thrive in a digital age.

10. Proofread and revise: Before submitting your essay, make sure to proofread and revise it for clarity, coherence, and grammar. This will ensure that your essay is well-written and effectively communicates your ideas about digital literacy.

Essay on Digital Literacy in 10 Lines – Examples

1. Digital literacy refers to the ability to find, evaluate, utilize, share, and create content using digital technology. 2. It involves understanding how to navigate the internet, use search engines effectively, and assess the credibility of online sources. 3. Digital literacy also includes the skills needed to communicate through various digital platforms, such as social media, email, and messaging apps. 4. It is essential for students, professionals, and individuals in today’s digital age to be digitally literate in order to succeed in their personal and professional lives. 5. Digital literacy helps individuals stay informed, connected, and engaged in a rapidly changing digital world. 6. It empowers individuals to critically analyze information, think creatively, and problem-solve using digital tools. 7. Digital literacy can enhance communication skills, collaboration, and productivity in various settings. 8. It is important for individuals to continuously develop their digital literacy skills to keep up with advancements in technology. 9. Digital literacy can also help individuals protect their privacy and security online by understanding how to safeguard personal information. 10. Overall, digital literacy is a crucial skill set that enables individuals to thrive in the digital age and make informed decisions in a technology-driven society.

Sample Essay on Digital Literacy in 100-180 Words

Digital literacy is the ability to navigate, evaluate, and create information using digital technology. In today’s digital age, it is essential for individuals to be digitally literate in order to effectively communicate, collaborate, and access information. Being digitally literate means understanding how to use digital tools and platforms, critically evaluating online information, and protecting one’s privacy and security online.

Digital literacy is important for both personal and professional success. It allows individuals to stay connected with others, access a wealth of information, and participate in the digital economy. Without digital literacy skills, individuals may struggle to keep up with the rapidly changing technology landscape and may be at risk of falling behind in today’s digital world.

Overall, digital literacy is a crucial skill that everyone should strive to develop in order to thrive in the digital age.

Short Essay on Digital Literacy in 200-500 Words

Digital literacy is the ability to use and understand technology and digital tools effectively. In today’s digital age, being digitally literate is essential for success in both personal and professional settings. From using social media platforms to navigating online resources, digital literacy plays a crucial role in our daily lives.

One of the key aspects of digital literacy is the ability to navigate the internet safely and responsibly. With the vast amount of information available online, it is important to be able to discern credible sources from unreliable ones. Being digitally literate means knowing how to fact-check information and avoid falling for fake news or scams. It also involves understanding the importance of privacy and security online, such as creating strong passwords and being cautious about sharing personal information.

Digital literacy also encompasses the ability to effectively communicate and collaborate using digital tools. From email to video conferencing platforms, being able to communicate digitally is essential in today’s interconnected world. Digital literacy also involves knowing how to use productivity tools such as word processors and spreadsheets to organize and manage information efficiently. These skills are not only valuable in the workplace but also in everyday life, such as planning events or managing personal finances.

In addition, digital literacy plays a crucial role in education. With the increasing use of technology in the classroom, students need to be digitally literate to succeed academically. From conducting research online to creating multimedia presentations, digital literacy skills are essential for students to excel in their studies. Teachers also need to be digitally literate to effectively integrate technology into their lessons and provide students with the necessary skills for the future.

Furthermore, digital literacy is essential for career advancement in today’s digital economy. Many jobs now require employees to have a basic understanding of digital tools and technologies. From using social media for marketing to analyzing data using software programs, digital literacy is a valuable skill in a wide range of industries. Employers are looking for candidates who are digitally literate and can adapt to the rapidly changing technological landscape.

In conclusion, digital literacy is a vital skill in today’s digital age. From navigating the internet safely to communicating effectively using digital tools, being digitally literate is essential for success in both personal and professional settings. By developing digital literacy skills, individuals can stay informed, connected, and competitive in an increasingly digital world.

Essay on Digital Literacy in 1000-1500 Words

Digital literacy is a crucial skill in today’s society, as technology continues to play an increasingly important role in our daily lives. From communication and entertainment to education and work, digital literacy is essential for navigating the digital world effectively and responsibly. In this essay, we will explore the importance of digital literacy, its impact on various aspects of our lives, and how individuals can improve their digital literacy skills.

First and foremost, it is important to understand what digital literacy entails. Digital literacy refers to the ability to use, understand, and evaluate digital technologies effectively. This includes not only basic skills such as using a computer or smartphone, but also more advanced skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and information literacy. In today’s digital age, being digitally literate is essential for participating fully in society and the economy.

One of the key reasons why digital literacy is so important is its impact on education. With the increasing use of technology in the classroom, students need to be digitally literate in order to succeed academically. From online research and digital collaboration to multimedia presentations and online assessments, digital literacy skills are essential for students to excel in their studies. Additionally, digital literacy can help students develop critical thinking skills and evaluate the credibility of online sources, which is crucial in today’s age of fake news and misinformation.

Furthermore, digital literacy is also important for the workforce. In today’s digital economy, many jobs require some level of digital literacy, whether it be basic computer skills or more advanced technical skills. Employers are looking for candidates who are comfortable using technology and can adapt to new digital tools and platforms. In fact, a lack of digital literacy can be a barrier to employment, as many jobs now require applicants to have a certain level of digital proficiency.

Moreover, digital literacy is essential for communication and social interaction. With the rise of social media and online communication platforms, being digitally literate is crucial for staying connected with friends and family, as well as for networking and building professional relationships. Digital literacy skills such as online etiquette and digital citizenship are important for navigating the complexities of the digital world and interacting with others in a respectful and responsible manner.

In addition, digital literacy is important for accessing information and resources online. With the vast amount of information available on the internet, it is essential to have the skills to search for, evaluate, and use information effectively. Digital literacy skills such as information literacy and media literacy are crucial for distinguishing between reliable and unreliable sources, as well as for critically analyzing and interpreting information.

Despite the importance of digital literacy, many individuals still lack the necessary skills to navigate the digital world effectively. This is especially true for older adults, low-income individuals, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds who may not have access to technology or the resources to develop their digital literacy skills. In order to bridge this digital divide, it is important to provide digital literacy training and resources to those who need it most.

There are several ways in which individuals can improve their digital literacy skills. One way is through formal education and training programs that teach digital literacy skills such as computer basics, internet safety, and online research skills. Many schools and community organizations offer digital literacy classes and workshops to help individuals develop the skills they need to succeed in the digital world.

Another way to improve digital literacy is through self-directed learning and practice. By exploring different digital tools and platforms, individuals can gain hands-on experience and develop their skills through trial and error. Online tutorials, webinars, and other resources are also available to help individuals learn new digital skills and stay up-to-date on the latest technology trends.

Furthermore, it is important for individuals to stay informed about digital issues and trends in order to be responsible digital citizens. This includes being aware of online privacy and security risks, understanding the implications of sharing personal information online, and being mindful of the impact of digital technology on society. By staying informed and engaged, individuals can make informed decisions about their digital use and contribute to a more inclusive and equitable digital society.

In conclusion, digital literacy is a crucial skill in today’s society, as technology continues to play a central role in our daily lives. From education and work to communication and social interaction, digital literacy is essential for navigating the digital world effectively and responsibly. By developing digital literacy skills, individuals can access information and resources online, succeed in the workforce, and participate fully in society. It is important for individuals to continue to improve their digital literacy skills through education, training, and self-directed learning in order to thrive in the digital age.

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Essay on Digital Literacy

Students are often asked to write an essay on Digital Literacy in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Digital Literacy

Understanding digital literacy.

Digital Literacy is knowing how to use digital devices like computers, tablets, and smartphones. It’s about understanding the internet and social media. It’s important because we live in a digital world. We use digital tools for school, work, and fun.

Why is Digital Literacy Important?

Digital Literacy helps us learn and communicate. It helps us find information quickly and easily. It can also keep us safe online. We need to know how to protect our personal information and avoid dangerous sites.

How Can We Improve Digital Literacy?

We can improve Digital Literacy by learning. Schools and libraries often have classes. We can also learn from friends or family. Practice is important too. The more we use digital tools, the better we get.

Challenges of Digital Literacy

Sometimes, Digital Literacy can be hard. Not everyone has access to digital tools. Some people might find them difficult to use. But with time and patience, we can overcome these challenges.

250 Words Essay on Digital Literacy

What is digital literacy.

Digital literacy is the ability to use digital devices like computers, smartphones, and tablets. It’s about knowing how to search for information online, use social media, send emails, and protect your personal information. It’s a bit like learning to read and write, but with technology.

In today’s world, technology is everywhere. We use it for school, work, and even fun. Being digitally literate helps you do all these things easily. It also helps you stay safe online. For example, knowing how to spot a scam email can protect you from losing money or personal information.

Parts of Digital Literacy

Digital literacy has many parts. One part is technical skills, like knowing how to use a keyboard or mouse. Another part is understanding how to find and use information online. This could mean using a search engine, reading a blog post, or watching a video tutorial.

Learning Digital Literacy

You can learn digital literacy at school, at home, or even by yourself. Many schools teach students how to use technology safely and effectively. Parents can also help by showing their kids how to use devices and the internet responsibly.

The Future of Digital Literacy

As technology keeps changing, digital literacy will also change. It will be more important than ever to keep learning new skills. This will help us keep up with the digital world and make the most of the opportunities it offers.

500 Words Essay on Digital Literacy

Digital literacy is the ability to use digital technology, such as computers, smartphones, and the internet. It includes knowing how to find information online, how to use social media, and how to stay safe on the internet. Just like we need to know how to read and write in school, we also need to learn digital literacy in today’s world.

Digital literacy is important because we use technology every day. We use it for schoolwork, to talk to our friends, and even for fun. If we do not know how to use technology safely and effectively, we could get into trouble. For example, we might accidentally share personal information online, which can be dangerous. Or we might have trouble completing school assignments if we do not know how to use the internet for research.

1. Technical skills: This includes knowing how to use different devices, like laptops, tablets, and smartphones. It also includes knowing how to use different types of software, like word processors and web browsers.

2. Information skills: This involves knowing how to find and evaluate information online. Not everything on the internet is true, so it is important to know how to tell the difference between reliable and unreliable sources.

Improving Digital Literacy

There are many ways to improve digital literacy. Schools often teach students how to use technology and the internet. There are also many online resources that can help. These include tutorials, videos, and websites that explain how to use different technologies. It is important to practice these skills regularly, just like any other skill.

In conclusion, digital literacy is a vital skill in today’s world. It involves understanding how to use technology, how to find and evaluate information online, and how to stay safe on the internet. By improving our digital literacy, we can become more confident and capable users of technology.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Chapter 1: Introduction to Digital Literacy

Cheryl Brown

In this chapter, you will be introduced to the concept of digital literacy  and what new skills are needed in order to engage with the digital world responsibly and effectively. Drawing on your own digital experiences you will think about your digital literacy and digital footprint, developing positive strategies to proactively take control of your own digital identity.

Chapter Topics

Introduction.

• Taking Stock of Your Digital self

What is Digital Literacy?

Why is digital literacy important, improving your digital literacy: becoming a digital citizen.

Learning Objectives

After completing this chapter you should be able to:

• Describe the ways you use technology in your personal life and for learning
• Compare the different ways digital literacy has been referred to by scholars
• Examine how digital literacy differs between people based on the context in which they live and learn and the way they use technology
• Use a basic framework to assess your own digital literacy
• Reflect on your digital footprint
• Develop strategies to control your own digital identity

As digital technology has become more common, affordable, and portable, more and more people from all parts of society are starting to increase their online and digital participation. Understanding the new opportunities, rules, and potential pitfalls of the digital world doesn’t necessarily come automatically with long-term use. Not everyone using digital technology knows how to handle the range of available tools to their best extent, and even experienced digital technology users can fall prey to hackers, lose control of how they are represented online, or otherwise fail to maintain their digital identity in an optimal manner.

Digital literacy is a relatively new concept that emerged in the 1990s during the era of the Internet revolution. Before that, people talked more about “computer literacy.” But in 1997, Paul Gilster, a historian and educator first coined the term “digital literacy,” arguing that digital literacy went beyond just skills in using technology. He said it is about “mastering ideas, not [computer] keystrokes” (Gilster, 1997, p. 1).

Gilster (1997) further defined digital literacy as “the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers” (p. 1). For him, digital literacy involves the ability to critically evaluate information (presented in different formats) and make decisions about how to use this information in different real-life contexts.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to define the concept of digital literacy and its many different components, reflect on your own digital literacy, engage with the digital world responsibly, and be empowered as a digital citizen capable of helping others learn and develop their role in the digital world.

Taking Stock of Your Digital Self

You probably already use a range of technologies and digital tools in different aspects of your life. You might use mobile technologies, like a phone or tablet, to download materials or information from the Internet, or you may use them to communicate with friends and family. You may use information and communication technologies (ICT) mainly for work or for learning, or you might use it primarily for entertainment. In reality, people often use different technologies and tools for a mixture of purposes.

Activity 1.1: Thinking About Your Digital Self

Think about all the ways you use technology in your personal life (e.g. for entertainment, shopping, sharing photos, communicating with people, etc). Who do you interact with digitally, and how do you do this (i.e., what applications/websites do you use and for which purpose)? Now think about yourself as a student and the ways you use technology for learning?

Make a list or draw a diagram of your activities, noting the groups or networks you interact with digitally and thinking about how you use digital technology in the various spheres of your life.

You might like to try doing this digitally using this editable mind map about digital footprints on creatly.com or by making a drawing of your digital self on paper.

The Concept of Literacy

Let’s first start with “What is literacy?” Dictionaries define literacy as the ability to read and write. Within education, literacy is understood as the ability to read, write, and use arithmetic; the emphasis is on proficiency with language and numeracy.

It is important to pause and note that the term literacy has always held a degree of status. Globally, countries are often ranked in terms of literacy rates, compared by what percent of the adult population can read and write, for example. There is more complexity to the terms literate or illiterate, however, and a lot depends on context. “New literacy studies” view literacy as a situated practice; as in it all depends on where you come from and what your purpose is.

Activity 1.2: How is literacy depicted on the Internet?

Use a common search engine like Google and type the term “literacy” into the search bar. Select the option to view the results as images and scroll through the visual depictions of literacy. What do these images depict about the concept of literacy?

Much of what you find in your search will probably suggest a relationship between literacy and words. This may be attributed to the fact that the concept has traditionally been associated with language—i.e., alphabetic literacy. In popular use, the word literacy has increasingly become a synonym for skill, competence, and proficiency—for example, emotional literacy and spiritual literacy, etc.

Whatever your view of the word literacy, what is less questioned is the relationship between literacy and technology. Until quite recently, literacy has, for the most part, been associated with print technology. The increasingly important role that digital technology has taken in shaping our world has led to another defining moment in the evolution of literacy.

The Concept of Digital

So what is digital? When you thought about your digital self  in Activity 1.1, you probably thought about the digital tools and technologies that are available to you. For example: “Oh, I use text messaging on my cell phone to communicate with friends.” Or: “I use email at university on my laptop or in the computer lab to communicate with faculty.” But the digital part (just like literacy) depends on context. The technology that you use and may even take for granted is not the same technology that your grandparents use or that students in another country use. This is why the concept of digital literacy is more often now referred to as digital literacies as a plural, acknowledging the variability of what is both available and relevant.

Digital Literacy

Since the pioneering introduction of computers into education in the 1960s , four key concepts that have dominated the literature on literacies related to digital technology include: information literacy, media literacy, computer literacy, and digital literacy (Brown, Czerniewicz, Huang & Mayisela, 2016). These four literacies are not competing, but in fact are necessary components of what it means to be literate in the twenty-first century. The table below presents an outline of the different terms and how they intersect:

The concept of digital literacy only started to gain attention in the last decade. Initially digital literacy was viewed primarily as the functional skills and competencies that people needed in order to use computers and the Internet. However in the last decade this has been expanded to consider the broader capacity needed to participate in a digital environment. UNESCO (2011) views digital literacy as a life skill that not only increases employability, but serves as a catalyst that “enables the acquisition of other important life skills” (p. 1).

The view of digital literacy offered by Jisc (2015) is even more comprehensive, defining digital literacy as “the capabilities which fit someone for living, learning and working in a digital society” (para. 3).  The capabilities outlined by Jisc :

• information, media, data literacy (critical use);
• digital creation, scholarship and innovation (creative production);
• digital communication, collaboration and participation (participating);
• digital learning and personal/professional development (learning); and
• digital identity and wellbeing (self-actualising).

(JISC, 2015)

Beyond functional and critical skills, the definitions and digital capabilities  identified here propose a particular mindset, a way of being. In particular, the last three capabilities outlined—the abilities to engage in participatory culture, to be a lifelong learner, and to manage a professional digital identity—render digital literacy remarkably different from the initial views of digital literacy simply as mastery of technical skills.

You might be familiar with the concept of a “ digital native ” or the “ net generation .” These terms refer to the idea that a person who has been born or brought up during the age of digital technology will be familiar with computers and the Internet from an early age.

Activity 1.3: Generational View of Digital Natives

There are many cartoons online that comment on the amusing side of this concept. Do a search on Google (or your favourite search engine) for “digital native” a cartoon. You might see images of kids looking at a book with shock and asking each other, “Where is the ‘on’ button?” Or you might see a child returning home from school walking right past their parent exclaiming, “How do you think it was? They didn’t even have Wi-Fi!”

In fact, this generational desire to be constantly connected has even been inserted into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as the ultimate foundation of basic human needs. This psychological model is depicted as a pyramid with people’s basic survival needs as its foundation which need to be satisfied before people can realise their full potential (Figure 1.3).

However, there has been a lot of criticism about the concept of the digital native because it assumes many things, not least that somehow all young people have access to technology, that older people don’t have the same level of digital literacy as younger people, and that having access to technology automatically means you know how to use it.

So if young people are so adept at using digital technologies, why do they (and perhaps you for that matter) need to improve their digital literacy?

There are many answers, and hopefully this introduction has already hinted at some of them. One is that it’s not enough in this globally connected world to just be able to use technology. You need to be able to develop socially responsible digital practices and also to contribute to digital practices in your own personal, work, and learning lives.

One way of visualizing this is Sharpe and Beetham’s (2010) digital literacy development model (see Figure 1.4).

The pyramid represents a cyclical process for developing digital literacy skills. At the base of the pyramid is awareness of technology and access to it. However, just because you have a piece of hardware or software doesn’t mean you have the ability to use it effectively. As you spend more time using technology, you become more confident in your technical, information, communication, and learning skills. You can then begin to apply those skills to make informed decisions and choices about how to use different technologies. As you move through the cycle, your experiences and practices contribute to the formation of your digital identity, while your identity informs your practices and drives the creative and appropriate use of technology.

This book is aimed at helping you develop your digital literacy in a range of areas in order to become a digital citizen.

Activity 1.4: How digitally literate are you?

Why not take stock of where you are right now. How digitally literate are you, and do you know what that means?

Download this model of the digital literacy development framework and complete it while thinking about your access, skills, practices and identities. This will help you take stock of where you are now and help you focus on where you want to develop.

Explore Your Digital Identity

Digital identity refers to your “online self,” the side of you that people see on the Internet. We all have different identities in different contexts and one of the things about being a digital citizen is the ability to control the representation of yourself in the online environment.

Activity 1.5: How do others see you online?

Search for references to yourself on the Internet by looking up your name using your preferred search engine. What do you have to type in to find the “real you” and not either someone else with the same name or a one-dimensional representation of you? Is this an accurate representation of who you are, what your interests are, what you find interesting, and what you share with others online?

Once you’ve reviewed your search results, have a look at this TedX talk “ What Do Your Digital Footprints Say About You? ” by digital education and social media expert Nicola Osbourne.

Were you happy with the results of the search in Activity 1.5? Is there something you would like to change? One of the problems with information online is that once it is there, it is often very difficult to delete. Being aware of what you share online is a very important digital skill.

Using the image below (Figure 1.5), reflect on your digital footprint . Decide on some SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound), and identify how you want the virtual “you” to look to the various people who might see you online: friends, family (including your grandmother!), teachers and professors, coaches, neighbours, potential employers, potential dates, or complete strangers.

This book is aimed at helping you develop your digital literacy in a range of areas in order to become a better digital citizen. By the end of this book, you will be able to more effectively and responsibly:

• Engage in digital practices.
• Critically evaluate information, online interactions, and online tools.
• Manage and communicate information.
• Collaborate and share digital content.

Brown, C., Czerniewicz., L., Huang, C-W., & Mayisela., T. (2016). Curriculum for digital education leadership: A concept paper. Burnaby, BC: Commonwealth of Learning. Retrieved from http://oasis.col.org/handle/ 11599/2442

European Commission (2007). A European approach to media literacy in the digital environment. Retrieved from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM%3A2007%3A0833%3AFIN%3AEN%3APDF

Gilster, P. (1997). Digital Literacy . New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

JISC. (2015). Developing students’ digital literacy. Retrieved from https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/developing-students-digital-literacy

Sharpe, R. & Beetham, H. (2010) Understanding students’ uses of technology for learning: Towards creative appropriation. In R. Sharpe, H. Beetham and S. de Freitas (Eds.) Rethinking learning for a digital age: how learners shape their experiences , (pp. 85-99). Routledge Falmer, London and New York. Retrieved from   https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/ radar/items/4887c90b-adc6- db4f-397f-ea61e53739e0/1/

UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education. (2011, May). Digital literacy in education policy brief . Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002144/214485e.pdf

Media Attributions

• Chapter 1 header image © Kaitlyn Baker
• Figure 1.3 © Duncan Hull is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
• Figure 1.4 © Rhona Sharpe & Helen Beetham
• Figure 1.5 © Nicola Pallitt is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license

The ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers

The way you use the range of technologies and digital tools you use in different aspects of your life

Those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society

The idea that a person who has been born or brought up during the age of digital technology will be familiar with computers and the Internet from an early age.

Refers to your “online self”, the electronic representation of who you are.

The trail of ‘electronic breadcrumbs’ you leave behind you as you use the internet both intentionally but also unintentionally.

Goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Digital Citizenship Toolkit Copyright © by Cheryl Brown is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Key factors in digital literacy in learning and education: a systematic literature review using text mining

• Open access
• Published: 10 February 2022
• Volume 27 , pages 7395–7419, ( 2022 )

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• Catherine Audrin   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2905-6000 1 &
• Bertrand Audrin 2  

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This research aims at providing an overview of the research field of digital literacy into learning and education. Using text mining, it reviews 1037 research articles published on the topic between 2000 and 2020. This review reveals that there is a plurality of terms associated with digital literacy. Moreover, our research identifies six key factors that define the literature, which are information literacy, developing digital literacy, digital learning, ICT, social media, and twenty-first century digital skills. These factors can be grouped into three main streams, which are 1) digital literacy, 2) digital learning and 3) twenty-first century digital skills. These three streams are supported by informational and technological foundations. These results provide research avenues and offer a framework for digital literacy in education.

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1 Introduction

With the rise of digitalization over the last decades, digital literacy has taken a central role in our society and has become an important concern for institutions and policy makers (European Commission, 2020 ; U.S. Department of Education, 2014 ). It is also a particular topic of interest for research, be it in the definition of this digital literacy (Gilster, 1997 ; van Laar et al., 2017 ) or its development (List, 2019 ; Ng, 2012 ). The impact of digital society is also studied in relation to education (Di Giacomo et al., 2017 ; Pinto et al., 2020 ) and research (Ferreira-Mello et al., 2019 ; Stopar & Bartol, 2019 ).

In the same way that the term digital transformation covers a vast and varied set of phenomena (Audrin, 2019 ; Vial, 2019 ), there is a wide range of concepts for addressing the notions of digital skills in education literature, with some specificities and overlaps among definitions. In going beyond issues of terminology, the very purpose of research on the subject of digital literacy varies, as does the context in which it is led.

Over the last twenty years, the number of publications on digital literacy has grown almost exponentially. This abundance of scientific production is, of course, beneficial because it increases knowledge on the subject, but it also represents a significant challenge for scholars: given the proliferation of studies on the subject, it is very difficult to make sense of the field of research and to fully understand its specificities and areas of interest. Scholars benefit from using digital and quantitative research methods to give sense to the field of research. For example, Stopar & Bartol ( 2019 ) analyze clusters of co-citations and co-citing sources to understand how research is organized. The rationale of this study is to make sense of the abundant body of literature on the theme of digital literacy in the context of education and learning. This study uses text mining to structure the field of research.

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, we want to map how digital literacy and its related notions are investigated in the context of learning and educational research. More specifically, we are interested in studying which concepts are used by researchers, and if these refer to distinct specific skills. The second purpose of this article is to study the key research streams on the topic of digital literacy and its related notions in the literature. Thus, our purpose is to both provide an overview of the field, as well as to highlight how research integrates digital literacy into learning and education. Our research questions are the following:

1) What place does digital literacy hold in the literature on education and learning?

2) How is digital literacy conceptualized in the educational context and what are the main research streams on the topic?

To answer these research questions, we conducted a systematic review of the literature using text mining (Ignatow & Mihalcea, 2018 ; Thomas et al., 2011 ). This method is particularly suitable for our systematic literature review because it allows us to automate to a certain extent the content analysis process, and thus to process very large volumes of data in a systematic way. Text mining works by associating words or sentences and allows patterns to be extracted from a multitude of documents (Fabbri et al., 2013 ; Thomas et al., 2011 ). Our study is based on all articles published between 2000 and 2020 in English peer-reviewed journals collected on all relevant databases (Web of Science, ERIC and PsycINFO).

As defined by Moher et al. ( 2015 ), the purpose of a systematic review is “to collate all relevant evidence that fits pre-specified eligibility criteria to answer a specific research question” (Moher et al., 2015 , p. 3). A systematic review allows a clear synthesis of the characteristics and findings of the studies included in the review by adopting a systematic search to identify all studies that meet given eligibility criteria. While traditional systematic literature reviews are mostly performed manually, we propose using (semi) automatic methods. We believe that due to the huge amount of relevant literature available in the early stage of the literature review process (Ananiadou et al., 2009 ; Fabbri et al., 2013 ), researchers may benefit from the automatic extraction allowed by textual analyses (Thomas et al., 2011 ). Text mining is being increasingly used in research in education (Ferreira-Mello et al., 2019 ), as it helps provide new insights by analyzing huge quantities of information. Text mining has been used in the field of education on a variety of data, but has not been used, to the best of our knowledge, to conduct a systematic literature review on scientific articles in the field of education and on the topic of digital literacy.

Having said that, given the power of such a tool to conduct analyses on large volumes of data (such as the body of literature on digital skills in education), we believe this method could be very fruitful in order to get an understanding of the literature focusing on digital literacy in learning and education. More specifically, text mining is designed to 1) foster information retrieval, 2) extract information and 3) perform data mining by highlighting both direct and indirect associations between various pieces of information (Thomas et al., 2011 ). Such processes are central when conducting a systematic literature review. We thus used textual analysis to 1) filter and categorize journal articles and 2) summarize central topics emerging from these articles. Text mining allowed us to extract information about the main concepts studied in the selected articles and to organize said concepts based on their co-occurence.

2.1 Inclusion criteria

To select the studies included in this systematic review, we used the following criteria:

The article had to be published in a peer-reviewed journal and written in English. These criteria not only guaranteed scientific quality but also allowed us to gather the most important body of research focusing on digital literacy in learning and education. The language criterion was also necessary in order to perform the analysis with WordStat.

The article had to be published between January 2000 and November 2020. We chose 2000 as the milestone because this year represents the emerging year of the field of digital literacy in education, shortly after Gilster’s seminal work on digital literacy.

The study had to mention the constructs of interest (i.e. “digital*”, “learn*”, “educ*”) in its title and/or abstract.

2.2 Literature research strategy

The studies were identified by searching the databases PsycINFO, Web of Science and ERIC. We searched for all available records starting from January 2000 until November 2020, using the following combination of keywords in the title or abstract of the article: “digital competenc*” OR “digital (NEAR/2) skills” OR (“digital literacy” OR “e-skills”) AND (“learn*” OR “education”). We based this query on van Laar et al. ( 2017 )‘s systematic literature review. This research held an initial pool of 1460 articles. After removing duplicates, there were 1037 articles left.

2.3 Data analysis

We performed text mining with the software WordStat 8 on the titles and abstracts of the 1037 articles selected in the previous section. WordStat is a software that offers quantitative analysis of textual data (Pollach, 2011 ). Through dictionaries, it allows to explore a corpus of texts and to identify key factors underlying said corpus. Recent literature reviews have been realized using WordStat (Ćurlin et al., 2019 ; Jede & Teuteberg, 2015 ). As specified by Durach et al. ( 2017 ), researchers performing a literature review are required to summarize the findings of the different studies. Relying on a textometric analysis allows for more objectivity in summarizing studies as researchers do not intervene in the coding and thus, do not tend to introduce biases during the analysis, coding and synthesis of the literature review.

The principle of text mining is that “the frequency with which a content word appears, the statistical relationships between content words and their context all witness to thematic patterns specific to a corpus” (Lavissière et al., 2020 , p. 136). Our textometric analysis uses both processes of stemming and lemmatization. Stemming compiles and removes derivations and inflections of words to gather them into roots – or stems. We used Lovins’ algorithm (Allahyari et al., 2017 ; Vijayarani et al., 2015 ). Lemmatization identifies the basic form of the words used in the corpus and relates them to their dictionary form. It thus returns to the lemma of the world, which is the dictionary form of a given word (Schütze et al., 2008 ).

Thus, our analysis first consisted in assessing the frequency of phrases across titles and abstracts in our corpus of articles. Then, we performed a co-occurrence analysis on the frequencies of phrases in titles and abstracts. Such analysis is based on the construction of a specific dictionary for the corpus. We built this dictionary based on the results of the frequency analysis. Items were included in the dictionary if they 1) occurred more than 100 times and 2) were directly related to learning, education and digital technologies. This dictionary accounted for 11.4% of the total words of the whole corpus. When considering excluded words (such as “a”, “the”, etc.), our dictionary accounted for 96% of the corpus. This analysis allowed us to find common phrases in our corpus, and further to perform factor analysis, multidimensional scaling and link analysis on our data. Note that we considered “phrases” to be the sequence of two to eight co-occurring words. We used the Phi coefficient to measure the association between words, as its interpretation is similar to the Pearson correlation coefficient. We selected the second order clustering method, as it is based on the idea that two words are close to each other, not necessarily because they occur near each other or in a same document, but because they occur in similar environments.

Finally, we performed a latent semantic analysis by applying a factor analysis with Varimax Rotation in order to extract a small number of factors from synthesizing the data. Data was segmented between documents, meaning that the topic modeling used was based on the cooccurrence of words in one article (its title and abstract). Phrases that occurred less than 30 times were removed, as it is advised to ensure the stability of the factorial solution. We selected factors which accounted for at least 20% of the cases. To define our factors, we retained words whose loadings (standardized link between a word and its factor) were higher than .3. We chose to perform a factor analysis instead of a hierarchical cluster analysis given that in a factor analysis one word may be associated with more than one factor, which we believe is more realistic. Indeed, this may not only reveal the polysemous nature of words but also highlight that some words may appear in multiple contexts.

3.1 An ever-growing proliferation of publications in numerous journals

Results reveal a growing interest in the study of digital literacy and education, as reported in Fig.  1 . This figure reveals that very few studies were published on the topic of digital literacy and learning in 2001, while almost 300 articles were published on this topic in 2020. These results can seem logical and obvious, as digitalization as such is quite a recent concept that has really boomed over the last decade. It shows, however, how research adopts a topic and makes it a fundamental topic of research in a relative short span of time, as illustrated by the progression between 2011 (42 articles published) and 2019 (242 articles published). More precisely, we can say that a threshold has been crossed in 2015 when the number of publications got higher than a hundred in a year, almost doubling the numbers from the previous year. The numbers for the next few years confirm this trend, highlighting the growing importance of digital literacy and its relevance for research.

Number of publications by year

Four journals have published more than 20 papers on the topic, with “Computer & Education” leading at 41 articles and “International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence” following with 27 articles. Behind these big contributors, there is a very high number of journals that have published on the topic. The topic of digital literacy and learning is not limited to journals in the field of education but is also studied in other fields such as medicine and health, technology, organizational behavior, and so on. This highlights how digital literacy as a topic is widespread in literature, appearing in numerous journals with several terminologies, research angles, methods, and concerns that strongly differ.

3.2 A plurality of terms

We now turn to the content of our analysis itself. In Table  1 , we report a frequency table of the phrases which were mostly cited across all articles. As specified in the methods section, we considered “phrases” to the sequence of at least two co-occurring words. Phrases were kept if they occurred more than 100 times in the data. This table clearly highlights that “digital literacy” is a central concept, as it occurred 1734 times within 849 articles of our corpus of 1037 articles. It is then followed by “digital competence” (556 occurrences among 235 articles), “digital skills” (455 occurrences among 308 articles), and “digital competencies” (255 occurrences among 148 articles).

A first striking point is to notice the plurality of the terms used on this topic. This point has already been highlighted in various literature reviews on the topic (Aviram & Eshet-Alkalai, 2006 ; Spante et al., 2018 ), where scholars have tried to decipher the relationships between e-skills, digital literacy, information and communication technology (ICT) literacy, digital skills, digital competence, and so on. The biggest issue when trying to make sense of the relationships between such a variety of terms is to understand to which extent they are similar or distinct. By going back to the very definitions of the concepts used in the literature, we can note some differences in the way the concepts are defined and used.

Definitions of digital literacy are numerous in education literature, but all trace back to the original definition suggested by Gilster ( 1997 ) who defines digital literacy as “the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers” (Gilster, 1997 , p.1). This definition offers a very interesting starting point as to what digital literacy encompasses by emphasizing that digital literacy is not only about technical skills but also encompasses a cognitive dimension (van Laar et al., 2017 ; Spante et al., 2018 ). Avila and Pandya ( 2013 ) further emphasize the critical-thinking dimension of digital literacy by coining the term “critical digital literacies” (Avila & Pandya, 2013 , p. 3). Other scholars such as Aviram and Eshet-Alkalai ( 2006 ); Ng ( 2012 ); Tuamsuk and Subramaniam ( 2017 ) even go beyond in suggesting that there is another dimension to digital literacy, which is the socio-emotional dimension. In this perspective, digital literacy also integrates online behaviors and the sensibility that is required to behave appropriately (Eshet, 2004 ). One of the first things that is striking when comparing these definitions is that there is no consensus on the actual definition of digital literacy. Scholars agree that digital literacy goes beyond technical aspects to include cognitive aspects. Beyond that, digital literacy appears as a multifaceted notion with some scholars emphasizing specific elements and others emphasizing others.

The second most recurring term in our corpus is “digital competence” or “digital competencies”. It is broadly defined by Picatoste ( 2018 ) as “a set of different skills for achieving a good performance on digital society” (Picatoste et al., 2018 , p. 1033). This definition is interesting because it emphasizes the notion of performance. Other existing definitions of digital competence further insist on the notion of technology use (Scuotto & Morellato, 2013 ) and knowledge production (Cazco et al., 2016 ). These definitions are interesting because they articulate digital competence around practical aspects of using digital tools. In contrast, digital literacy seems to be focusing more on processing and communicating information.

The third term that appears most frequently in our corpus is “digital skills”. Here again, the term has been widely used in the literature and many definitions exist. Van Dijk for example defines digital skills as the “set of skills that users need to operate computers and their networks, to search and select information, and the ability to use them for the fulfillment of one’s goals” (van Dijk, 2006 , p.73). This definition distinguishes three dimensions of digital skills: technical skills (i.e. the ability to operate a computer or other kinds of digital technologies), information-seeking skills (i.e. ability to browse and select relevant information), and strategic skills (i.e. using technical and information skills in order to achieve something) (van Dijk, 2006 ). van Deursen and van Dijk ( 2009 ) further make a distinction between the technical aspects and the content aspects in the digital skills to account for the specificities of online content. The way digital skills are defined in the literature seems to put emphasis on both the technological and medium of communication aspects.

Table 1 further highlights that the term ‘twenty-first century’ appears 160 times. This term can be associated with twenty-first century skills or twenty-first century digital skills, terms that have been made popular by van Laar et al. ( 2017 , 2019 ). They provide a framework for defining twenty-first century digital skills as it identifies seven core skills, which are technical, information management, communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking and problem solving. Twenty-First century digital skills as such, consist of a broad array of competencies that are crucial in order to successfully accomplish tasks in the digital twenty-first century. Van Laar and colleagues further study how some determinants such as education level, age, and social support influence 21st digital skills, and are as such needed to be taken into account by educators and policy-makers (van Laar et al., 2019 ).

Based on Table 1 and on the definitions available in the literature, it appears that there is a multiplicity of overlapping concepts in education literature, all of which have their specificities and their particular inclinations. The pervasiveness of various terms such as digital literacy, digital competence(s), digital skills, and twenty-first century digital skills casts doubt on the overall appropriateness of use of the terms in the literature. It raises questions about the extent to which scholars use them with a specific intent in mind, with Fieldhouse and Nicholas ( 2008 ) noting that terms are often interchangeable in taking the example of ‘literacy’, ‘fluency’, and ‘competency’. Table 1 highlights the breadth and heterogeneity of the terminology used in the literature; the results of our co-occurrence analysis emphasize this global lack of precision in the terminology and in its use.

3.3 Co-occurrence analysis: Classroom versus everyday life

In the following section, we report the results of a co-occurrence analysis based on the frequencies of phrases in titles and abstracts. Figure  2 represents a dendrogram describing the similarities between the phrases, and Table  2 shows a table of similarity, where the coefficients can be interpreted as correlation coefficients. Note that the values of the coefficients are not based on the frequencies of the words but rather on the co-occurrences of specific words in a case.

Dendrogram of the co-occurrence of phrases – generated by WordStat

Two main groups of phrases can be extracted from the dendrogram and from the similarities table. On the one hand, themes related to information literacy, digital media, literacy and social media appear to form one group of concepts. Indeed, social media and social networks are related to “online” (both phi higher than .5) and “internet” (phi = .486). Surprisingly, the term “internet” is negatively associated with concepts related to learning and education (such as “pedagogy”, phi = −.729; teaching, phi = −.652, teaching and learning, phi = −.642, school, phi = −.517 and student, phi = −.523).This leads us to the second main group of phrases, which are related to the classroom. This group includes phrases such as “learning”, “language”, “pedagog*”, “school”, “student”, “teach*, “teacher education”, “teaching and learning”, which all have an association higher than .5 with the concept of “classroom”. These terms are also strongly related with the term “competence” (association higher than .4). Moreover, competence is strongly related to “train*” (phi = .713) and “universit*” (phi = .443).

This dendrogram provides a visual representation of how the terms in our corpus are associated. It is interesting to note that two groups of phrases emerge, with terms associated with the educational and learning environment on the one hand, and those with a more practical focus on the other. We can therefore distinguish in our corpus a literature that deals with the development of digital skills from a literature that focuses on the operationalization of such digital skills. Figure 2 therefore displays two major research streams on digital literacy.

4 Discussion

The purpose of this review was to provide an overview of the research field of digital literacy into learning and education. More precisely, it aimed at answering the following two questions: 1) What place does digital literacy hold in the literature on education and learning? 2) How is digital literacy conceptualized in the educational context and what are the main research streams on the topic?

Using text mining, this review maps the field of educational research in line with digital literacy. A number of 1037 studies performed between 2000 and 2020 on this topic were included, as they explicitly mentioned digital skills (or related terms such as digital literacy or competence), education and learning either in their title and/or in their abstract. This number of studies shows that there is a great deal of interest in this topic. The first question that this rapid growth raises is that of the sustainability of this research area: is digital literacy a long-lasting research topic or is it going to be out-of-date in a few years because of the emergence of new technologies? On one hand, the fact that digital literacy is tightly linked to ICT and digital media suggests that it might not be relevant in a post-digital world. On the other hand, the very concept of digital literacy is more than twenty years old and still relevant, even if technological evolution has been tremendous over that period of time. Moreover, the concept of digital literacy covers more than the sole technical dimension, which suggests that research on the subject still has a long way to go.

Our analysis suggests that the terms used (most notably, digital skills, digital literacy, digital competence(s)) need to be clearly defined, as authors tend to use them interchangeably although each term has its own specificities. These results are consistent with other literature reviews (Spante et al., 2018 ). The relative youth of the literature field (about twenty years old) might explain why the terminology is not yet fully established. Nonetheless, this may generate some confusion and potential misunderstandings, as well as a dispersion in the field of research. Our descriptive results shed light on this plurality and our analysis of the corpus provide an overview of the research field and highlights how research integrates digital literacy into learning and education. This allows researchers to better position their research on the subject and to use the appropriate terminology.

Our research allows us to go beyond the issues of terminology to offer a mapping of the field of research in education sciences on digital literacy. Text mining allows us to give an overview of the field, but also to investigate in detail the different elements that compose it.

Our results highlight a fragmentation in this field: on the one hand, there are studies focusing on digital literacy in an educational context (i.e. in classrooms and other learning contexts). On the other hand, there is research highlighting practical aspects related to digital world, such as the use of social media and social network and more generally to information literacy. This fragmentation of research in this field is in line with Stopar and Bartol ( 2019 ) who also identify distinct research clusters. This allows us to identify three main streams of research, namely: learning digital literacy, digital learning and twenty-first century digital skills, as well as two fundamental dimensions that support the digital ecosystem that are the informational and the technological base.

Digital literacy and digital learning are at heart of the research field, as they constitute its core focus. Research is booming and there are more and more studies investigating either the development of digital literacy or digital learning setups. There is a high correlation between these two research streams, but more research needs to be led in order to combine these two research streams. Research could for example focus on how digital literacy enables digital learning, or, at the opposite, how digital learning creates a fruitful environment to develop digital literacy (e.g. Cazco et al., 2016 ; Hatlevik, 2017 ; Yu et al., 2017 ). Research could also specifically target vocational teachers, as their role in both fostering digital literacy and creating digital learning environments are crucial (e.g. Area-Moreira et al., 2016 ; Gómez-Trigueros et al., 2019 ; Gudmundsdottir et al., 2020 ; Guillén-Gámez et al., 2019 ; Martín et al., 2020 ; Mynaříková & Novotný, 2020 ). Research also advocates that teacher training should focus more on the vocational teachers’ development of digital skills, notably by integrating ICT in their curriculum (Pombo et al., 2017 ).

The twenty-first century digital skills factor shows another axis of research in the literature field bridging the technological base and the informational base. Rather than asking the question of digital learning or learning digital literacy, the issue here is the operationalization of these skills between technology and information and communication. This factor therefore illustrates a third research axis in the literature on digital skills, which is more concerned with understanding what these digital skills are made of and how they can be used in everyday life. Research in this stream can step out of the traditional education and learning field of research to tackle other issues related to twenty-first century digital skills, for example in the workplace (van Laar et al., 2019 ).

The technological aspect is very important and can be found in the ICT and social media factors. They represent the “technological base” without which the whole digital ecosystem would not exist, demonstrating their central role in research. The particularity of digital communication tools is that they are constantly evolving, which is why studies focusing on tools are always relevant as they deal with a constantly evolving reality that needs to be understood. The social media factor, beyond its technological dimension, also has to be linked to its daily life dimension in which social media is used for all kinds of activities. This factor therefore has an embeddedness in daily life that is important to take into account.

Information and communication are also a key element of this research area, constituting what could be called the “informational base” without which the whole digital ecosystem does not exist. In this sense, the information literacy factor puts the emphasis on data and on information and communication, which are the core forms of expression in digital literacy. The performance of information and communication tasks is at the heart of digital literacy, and this “informational base” appears in both research streams.

Our study has several limitations. The first limitation is methodological in nature and concerns text mining. In contrast to traditional systematic literature reviews which focus on the most relevant articles by establishing very precise selection criteria and analyze them in depth, our approach via text mining aims rather at processing a very large number of articles (the whole body of articles published on the topic) and analyzing them in an automated way. This does not allow us to obtain the depth of analysis of traditional systematic literature reviews, but it is very useful in order to have a global understanding of the field of research. This objective of mapping the entire literature is incompatible with a more in-depth work on the content of the articles. Future studies, however, could dig deeper into the factors that have been identified in our analysis and analyze how these operate in the field of research in order to make sense of their specificities.

Another issue with text mining is that it works through keywords and can thus miss important topics if they are not signaled through the appropriate keywords. For example, private context does not appear in our analysis, even though there is an important body of literature that highlights the importance of personal factors. This literature focuses on children’s first use of ICT (Juhaňák et al., 2019 ), cultural background (Gui & Argentin, 2011 ), socioeconomic status (Hatlevik et al., 2015 ; Jara et al., 2015 ; Zhong, 2011 ), parental active mediation of ICT use (Livingstone et al., 2017 ), parental level of education (Cabello-Hutt et al., 2018 ). The absence of this dimension in our analysis might be explained by the fact that there is no term that encompasses all these sub-themes, no keyword that the automatic analysis could retrieve. This factor, however, plays an important role in the research as it seems to be a determinant of digital literacy.

Finally, one limitation of our study is its focus on education. This focus on educational research allows us to have a comprehensive view of the whole field, but limits our understanding of digital skills and their applications in daily life and notably within the world of work. Future studies could aim at bridging the classroom with the workplace in order to have a more global perspective on digital skills and results that benefit both (Ahlquist, 2014 ; Alvermann et al., 2012 ; Kivunja, 2014 ).

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We would like to thank our parents for their continuous support and guidance.

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Audrin, C., Audrin, B. Key factors in digital literacy in learning and education: a systematic literature review using text mining. Educ Inf Technol 27 , 7395–7419 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10832-5

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Ever since the innovation of computers and the internet, literacy has gained new meanings as opposed to the traditional one of being able to read, write and comprehend written text. These last few decades, we’ve been introduced to literacy concepts such as computer literacy, media literacy, information literacy, and digital literacy. Although these concepts overlap, digital literacy takes elements from each of them and sums them into a broad concept.

Because of the overflowing abundance of media and information in the digital world, digital literacy has become more than necessary. It ensures users protect their privacy, critically analyze digital data and information, ethically use digital platforms, and communicate with others eloquently. 

If you’re interested in learning more about digital literacy, why it is important, and what skills you need to boost your digital literacy, read on.

Paraphrasing the American Library Association (ALA), digital literacy is the ability to use technologies to find, evaluate, create and communicate information. Furthermore, ALA defines a digitally literate person as one who:

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Digital literacy learning and development is based on four main principles, such as:

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• Social Factors: Age, education, gender, income, and household type help understand how particular media is perceived or what content is more successful. So, it’s no wonder these factors play a huge role in creating an organic ecosystem of creating, sharing, and storing media or content and long-term success.
• Curation: This principle allows users to find, organize and save digital content to their preferences.

Why Digital Literacy Is More Than Reading Online

Although being able to find and read content online displays a level of digital literacy, it’s not that much different from reading print. Digital literacy encompasses a vast collection of skills that help users utilize digital tools to the fullest through finding, creating, sharing, and evaluating information. But also create a unique experience for all users. 

Digital Literacy Skills And Their Importance

Digital literacy skills have become necessary for navigating the ever-digitalizing world. Some of these skills are:

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Nonetheless, these skills can be collected into three main piles:

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Developing your abilities to learn, share, and organize media using digital technology opens a whole new world for you. Some handy tips that’ll help you develop and boost digital literacy skills are:

• Try experimenting with digital tools;
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• Adopt the mindset of life-long learning,
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• Ask for help when using new technologies.

When developing digital literacy skills, it’s important to focus on some competency areas:

• General knowledge;
• Legal practices;
• Seamless integration;
• Knowledge of appropriate digital technologies;
• Processing information;
• Balanced attitude, etc.

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The Bottom Line

Digital literacy has become crucial in functioning critically and effectively in the now-digital world, which is why we should encourage teaching and learning digital skills for all ages. The lifelong skills you will develop mean that you will use digital platforms thoughtfully and responsibly, will be able to apply skills across different media and applications and be able to manage your digital footprint in a positive manner.

So, we can conclude that digital literacy does not only benefit individuals but societies as well, as digital literacy skills help countries’ development in economy and security. 

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Why Digital Literacy Skills are Important for Students

by Lcom Team | Oct 5, 2023 | Blogs

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While reading and mathematics have remained steadily at the core of education, digital literacy curriculum is a relative newcomer that has quickly become a necessity in today’s educational systems. A critical life skill, digital literacy is important not only for career readiness, but also for educational and social success.

The importance of digital literacy skills for students is becoming more and more apparent as technology continues to envelop the daily lives of both children and adults. From social interactions to entertainment, education to professional life, the ability to use technology effectively is now considered essential for modern advancement and success.

What is Digital Literacy?

In our article “ What is Digital Literacy: Definition and Uses in Daily Life ,” we discuss that digital literacy is having the skills to effectively use technology, and the knowledge and skills to do so safely and responsibly.

The modern definition has evolved significantly with the advancement and evolution of existing technologies. Now, instead of outlining which technologies, exactly, are included in “digital literacy,” the phrase more commonly refers to literacy that broadly encompasses technology. This helps to prevent the need to redefine the “digital” aspect of digital literacy.

Why is Digital Literacy Important for Students?

As technology continues to become more and more ingrained in daily life, the importance of digital literacy is becoming increasingly apparent. Below are five reasons students should learn digital literacy skills.

1. Supports Educational Progress

One of the first reasons digital literacy skills are important is because of the increased use of technology in education. The use of technology as a learning tool has grown in the past 15 years, with technology platforms such as computers, tablets and the internet becoming increasingly prominent in K-12 schools and universities.

Students with digital literacy skills will be more comfortable and confident in these learning platforms, while those without digital literacy skills may have their progress stymied by an inability to or lack of confidence in navigating the related technology. In addition, with the majority of standardized state assessments being administered online, it’s increasingly important that students have the confidence to focus on the material in question instead of being slowed or distracted by using technology for the test. Learn more about this matter in our blog, “ Online Assessments: Helping Students Think about Answers, Not their Fingers. ”

2. Increases Online Safety

Online risks are complex and ever-changing, with nefarious individuals or groups continually discovering and creating new ways to take advantage of others. While digital literacy cannot prevent students from facing safety challenges online, it can empower them with important knowledge, tools, processes and resources to help protect their safety and privacy as much as possible.

3. Helps Students Understand Digital Responsibility

Along with online safety, digital literacy also teaches digital responsibility, which is the ability to consume and communicate information ethically online. Increased technology dependence exposes students to challenges related to copyright and plagiarism, cyberbullying, vetting informational resources, and interacting responsibly with others. Digital literacy skills help students master their ability to understand and effectively navigate these challenges, making them more responsible digital citizens.

4. Improves Social Opportunities

Whether we like it or not, more and more social interaction take place online. On one hand, digital literacy plays a role in being able to socialize with people outside of your immediate territory. Where friendships and even familial relationships used to depend on slow-communication, the use of technology eliminates the barriers of location when it comes to socialization. However, this opened world of social opportunities also exposes people–especially young people–to dangerous social scenarios. Mastering digital literacy skills allows students to connect with others online while protecting their information and safety.

5. Improves Digital Equity

Digital equity also helps to bridge the digital divide. Even with the proliferation of technology in households and educational institutions, there remains a disproportionate number of minority workers with limited digital literacy skills . By making digital literacy a priority in K-12 education, institutions can help to improve digital literacy among underrepresented groups, helping to upskill these students so they may have increased career opportunities in the future.

6. Supports Lifelong Skills

While technology is ever-changing, digital literacy foundations empower students with base knowledge and skills that can be applied to various types of technology now as well as in the future. For instance, learning basic concepts such as input/output, application operation, discerning hardware devices and how to use them, etc., can provide basic transferable knowledge that can be applied to new and emerging technologies.

To explore how EasyTech introduces digital literacy skills to students, learn more about EasyTech or sample the program today.

This article was originally published in April 2022 and has since been expanded and republished to include more complete, up-to-date information.

Learning.com Team

Staff Writers

Founded in 1999, Learning.com provides educators with solutions to prepare their students with critical digital skills. Our web-based curriculum for grades K-12 engages students as they learn keyboarding, online safety, applied productivity tools, computational thinking, coding and more.

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Introduction

The pervasive importance of digital literacy.

Digital Literacy: A Generational Perspective

The transformative impact of digital literacy on professional and personal realms, championing digital literacy: a continuous journey, conclusion: the imperative journey of digital literacy.

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Literacy — A Narrative of the Impact of Digital Literacy on My Life

A Narrative of The Impact of Digital Literacy on My Life

• Categories: Literacy

About this sample

Words: 464 |

Published: Oct 17, 2018

Words: 464 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Six Categories of Grading

Works cited.

• Bakir, V., & Palvia, P. (2010). E-readiness revisited: Reviewing the concept to address the digital divide. Information & Management, 47(4), 219-230.
• Hargittai, E. (2010). Digital na(t)ives? Variation in Internet skills and uses among members of the "Net Generation". Sociological Inquiry, 80(1), 92-113.
• National Institute of Literacy. (2008). The role of technology in adult learning. Retrieved from https://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/NELD-TechRole-final.pdf
• UNESCO. (2013). Reading in the mobile era: A study of mobile reading in developing countries. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000223549
• Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide. MIT Press.
• Liu, Z. (2005). Reading behavior in the digital environment: Changes in reading behavior over the past ten years. Journal of Documentation, 61(6), 700-712.
• Greenhow, C., & Robelia, B. (2009). Old communication, new literacies: Social network sites as social learning resources. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14(4), 1130-1161.
• National Writing Project & Social Science Research Council. (2009). Writing, technology, and teens. Retrieved from http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/Writing%20Report.pdf
• Lee, J. J., & Dey, E. L. (2014). Real-time motivation sensing and intervention in physical activity: A study with mothers and daughters. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1309-1318.
• Ng, W. (2012). Can we teach digital natives digital literacy? Computers & Education, 59(3), 1065-1078.

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STUDENT SAMPLE – Digital literacy narratives by first-year writing students in Fall 2010

I don’t often teach WRTG 1150, but the last time I did (in Fall 2010), we focused on digital literacy as a topic and a practice. Students composed digital literacy narratives, which they recorded as audio essays.

I’ve included a small selection of these essays below. Scroll down the page for more information on the concept of a digital literacy narrative.

STUDENT NARRATIVES

To listen to the narratives below, click on the play button or click on the title to download the MP3.

Growing Up to Be a Digital Native, by Mollie Starr

(download mp3)

Digital Literacy from Generation to Generation, by Colleen Waterhouse

Discovery , by mia debakker, my experience with digital literacy, by helen zell, what’s a digital literacy narrative.

The “literacy narrative” is a very popular genre among writing teachers, as it encourages students to reflect on their relationship to reading and writing in general, but the genre has also grown in popularity beyond the classroom, largely in response to the work of the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives . The DALN gathers literacy narratives from all kinds of people, in a variety of multimedia formats, and while some of them do focus specifically on “digital literacy,” most focus on traditional print literacy — or reading and writing in the medium of alphabetic text.

EVOLUTION OF AN IDEA

In the Fall of 2010, I asked my WRTG 1150 students to write their own digital literacy narratives, focusing not on how they learned to read and write print texts but how they learned to “read” computers and the internet — and how they learned to “write” in/through them. I thought it might be helpful to them to consider how communicating online requires a certain set of literacy skills — reading and writing skills — which is why we were focusing on those skills in a writing class. I also thought it might be kind of interesting to hear stories from the perspective of so-called “digital natives.”

The projects were pretty enlightening, so in the Spring I gave the topic as an option for my WRTG 2090 students, who also produced some enlightening narratives. Then I started thinking that it might be interesting to gather “digital literacy narratives” from a variety of people, not just students but people of all ages and occupations. So I bought a fancy digital camcorder, registered this domain name, and set out to find volunteers.

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Essay Samples on Digital Literacy

The importance of media literacy: my perspective.

Introduction Living in Generation Z and in a world full of advanced and modern technology is indeed easy. Those machineries and gadgets that are products of critical thinking skills of different inventors and scientists make our lives comfortable. Truly, our world evolves as time passes...

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Effective Presentation Skills and Information Literacy

Choosing the information literacy course was one of the most important decisions that I made in my life because information literacy is a very important and interesting course for so many reasons. In the first course didn't know many things about information literacy but the...

Analysis Of Advantages And Disadvantages Of Digital Literacy

Introduction The term 'Digital Literacy’ has been utilized by various writers all through the 1990s, to allude to a capacity to peruse and comprehend hypertextual and interactive media writings; see, for instance, Lanham (1995), who regards the term as synonymous with 'sight and sound proficiency....

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Definition and Social Demands of Digital Literacy

The American Library Association's digital-literacy task force offers this definition of digital literacy: 'Digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information requiring both cognitive and technical skills.' Hiller Spires, a professor of literacy and technology...

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The Modern Perception of Literacy and Its Digitalization

How do we, especially in the wake of modern technology–like the internet–distinguish what it means to be, according to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE, 2013) a “active, successful participant” in the 21st century? In order to actively partake in being a successful,...

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Information Literacy, Its Types and Influence on the Modern Society

Introduction As the world entered information era in the second half of 20th century, a need to acquire specific skills to manage the growing amount of data effectively emerged. This skillset was named “Information literacy” by Paul Zurkowsky, who primely saw it as a competence...

Innovation in Literacy: Studying and Teaching the Great Depression

In our world today, it is practically a requirement that one must be digitally literate. Within the field of education, transformation has yielded classrooms that have deviated from the predominantly traditional views of literacy. Literacy no longer means being fluent in both reading and writing...

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Types Of Digital Graphics Used: Raster And Vector

In digital media, two types of digital graphics are used: raster and vector. Raster files are bitmaps, which are fixed grids of pixels that compose an image as each pixel is coded to a specific hue. Raster graphics are used in photographs, scans and detailed...

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Best topics on Digital Literacy

1. The Importance of Media Literacy: My Perspective

2. Effective Presentation Skills and Information Literacy

3. Analysis Of Advantages And Disadvantages Of Digital Literacy

4. Definition and Social Demands of Digital Literacy

5. The Modern Perception of Literacy and Its Digitalization

6. Information Literacy, Its Types and Influence on the Modern Society

7. Innovation in Literacy: Studying and Teaching the Great Depression

8. Types Of Digital Graphics Used: Raster And Vector

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A systematic review on digital literacy

Hasan tinmaz.

1 AI & Big Data Department, Endicott College of International Studies, Woosong University, Daejeon, South Korea

Yoo-Taek Lee

2 Endicott College of International Studies, Woosong University, Daejeon, South Korea

Mina Fanea-Ivanovici

3 Department of Economics and Economic Policies, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Hasnan Baber

4 Abu Dhabi School of Management, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Associated Data

The authors present the articles used for the study in “ Appendix A ”.

The purpose of this study is to discover the main themes and categories of the research studies regarding digital literacy. To serve this purpose, the databases of WoS/Clarivate Analytics, Proquest Central, Emerald Management Journals, Jstor Business College Collections and Scopus/Elsevier were searched with four keyword-combinations and final forty-three articles were included in the dataset. The researchers applied a systematic literature review method to the dataset. The preliminary findings demonstrated that there is a growing prevalence of digital literacy articles starting from the year 2013. The dominant research methodology of the reviewed articles is qualitative. The four major themes revealed from the qualitative content analysis are: digital literacy, digital competencies, digital skills and digital thinking. Under each theme, the categories and their frequencies are analysed. Recommendations for further research and for real life implementations are generated.

Introduction

The extant literature on digital literacy, skills and competencies is rich in definitions and classifications, but there is still no consensus on the larger themes and subsumed themes categories. (Heitin, 2016 ). To exemplify, existing inventories of Internet skills suffer from ‘incompleteness and over-simplification, conceptual ambiguity’ (van Deursen et al., 2015 ), and Internet skills are only a part of digital skills. While there is already a plethora of research in this field, this research paper hereby aims to provide a general framework of digital areas and themes that can best describe digital (cap)abilities in the novel context of Industry 4.0 and the accelerated pandemic-triggered digitalisation. The areas and themes can represent the starting point for drafting a contemporary digital literacy framework.

Sousa and Rocha ( 2019 ) explained that there is a stake of digital skills for disruptive digital business, and they connect it to the latest developments, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud technology, big data, artificial intelligence, and robotics. The topic is even more important given the large disparities in digital literacy across regions (Tinmaz et al., 2022 ). More precisely, digital inequalities encompass skills, along with access, usage and self-perceptions. These inequalities need to be addressed, as they are credited with a ‘potential to shape life chances in multiple ways’ (Robinson et al., 2015 ), e.g., academic performance, labour market competitiveness, health, civic and political participation. Steps have been successfully taken to address physical access gaps, but skills gaps are still looming (Van Deursen & Van Dijk, 2010a ). Moreover, digital inequalities have grown larger due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and they influenced the very state of health of the most vulnerable categories of population or their employability in a time when digital skills are required (Baber et al., 2022 ; Beaunoyer, Dupéré & Guitton, 2020 ).

The systematic review the researchers propose is a useful updated instrument of classification and inventory for digital literacy. Considering the latest developments in the economy and in line with current digitalisation needs, digitally literate population may assist policymakers in various fields, e.g., education, administration, healthcare system, and managers of companies and other concerned organisations that need to stay competitive and to employ competitive workforce. Therefore, it is indispensably vital to comprehend the big picture of digital literacy related research.

Literature review

Since the advent of Digital Literacy, scholars have been concerned with identifying and classifying the various (cap)abilities related to its operation. Using the most cited academic papers in this stream of research, several classifications of digital-related literacies, competencies, and skills emerged.

Digital literacies

Digital literacy, which is one of the challenges of integration of technology in academic courses (Blau, Shamir-Inbal & Avdiel, 2020 ), has been defined in the current literature as the competencies and skills required for navigating a fragmented and complex information ecosystem (Eshet, 2004 ). A ‘Digital Literacy Framework’ was designed by Eshet-Alkalai ( 2012 ), comprising six categories: (a) photo-visual thinking (understanding and using visual information); (b) real-time thinking (simultaneously processing a variety of stimuli); (c) information thinking (evaluating and combining information from multiple digital sources); (d) branching thinking (navigating in non-linear hyper-media environments); (e) reproduction thinking (creating outcomes using technological tools by designing new content or remixing existing digital content); (f) social-emotional thinking (understanding and applying cyberspace rules). According to Heitin ( 2016 ), digital literacy groups the following clusters: (a) finding and consuming digital content; (b) creating digital content; (c) communicating or sharing digital content. Hence, the literature describes the digital literacy in many ways by associating a set of various technical and non-technical elements.

Digital competencies

The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp 2.1.), the most recent framework proposed by the European Union, which is currently under review and undergoing an updating process, contains five competency areas: (a) information and data literacy, (b) communication and collaboration, (c) digital content creation, (d) safety, and (e) problem solving (Carretero, Vuorikari & Punie, 2017 ). Digital competency had previously been described in a technical fashion by Ferrari ( 2012 ) as a set comprising information skills, communication skills, content creation skills, safety skills, and problem-solving skills, which later outlined the areas of competence in DigComp 2.1, too.

Digital skills

Ng ( 2012 ) pointed out the following three categories of digital skills: (a) technological (using technological tools); (b) cognitive (thinking critically when managing information); (c) social (communicating and socialising). A set of Internet skill was suggested by Van Deursen and Van Dijk ( 2009 , 2010b ), which contains: (a) operational skills (basic skills in using internet technology), (b) formal Internet skills (navigation and orientation skills); (c) information Internet skills (fulfilling information needs), and (d) strategic Internet skills (using the internet to reach goals). In 2014, the same authors added communication and content creation skills to the initial framework (van Dijk & van Deursen). Similarly, Helsper and Eynon ( 2013 ) put forward a set of four digital skills: technical, social, critical, and creative skills. Furthermore, van Deursen et al. ( 2015 ) built a set of items and factors to measure Internet skills: operational, information navigation, social, creative, mobile. More recent literature (vaan Laar et al., 2017 ) divides digital skills into seven core categories: technical, information management, communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving.

It is worth mentioning that the various methodologies used to classify digital literacy are overlapping or non-exhaustive, which confirms the conceptual ambiguity mentioned by van Deursen et al. ( 2015 ).

Digital thinking

Thinking skills (along with digital skills) have been acknowledged to be a significant element of digital literacy in the educational process context (Ferrari, 2012 ). In fact, critical thinking, creativity, and innovation are at the very core of DigComp. Information and Communication Technology as a support for thinking is a learning objective in any school curriculum. In the same vein, analytical thinking and interdisciplinary thinking, which help solve problems, are yet other concerns of educators in the Industry 4.0 (Ozkan-Ozen & Kazancoglu, 2021 ).

However, we have recently witnessed a shift of focus from learning how to use information and communication technologies to using it while staying safe in the cyber-environment and being aware of alternative facts. Digital thinking would encompass identifying fake news, misinformation, and echo chambers (Sulzer, 2018 ). Not least important, concern about cybersecurity has grown especially in times of political, social or economic turmoil, such as the elections or the Covid-19 crisis (Sulzer, 2018 ; Puig, Blanco-Anaya & Perez-Maceira, 2021 ).

Ultimately, this systematic review paper focuses on the following major research questions as follows:

• Research question 1: What is the yearly distribution of digital literacy related papers?
• Research question 2: What are the research methods for digital literacy related papers?
• Research question 3: What are the main themes in digital literacy related papers?
• Research question 4: What are the concentrated categories (under revealed main themes) in digital literacy related papers?

This study employed the systematic review method where the authors scrutinized the existing literature around the major research question of digital literacy. As Uman ( 2011 ) pointed, in systematic literature review, the findings of the earlier research are examined for the identification of consistent and repetitive themes. The systematic review method differs from literature review with its well managed and highly organized qualitative scrutiny processes where researchers tend to cover less materials from fewer number of databases to write their literature review (Kowalczyk & Truluck, 2013 ; Robinson & Lowe, 2015 ).

Data collection

To address major research objectives, the following five important databases are selected due to their digital literacy focused research dominance: 1. WoS/Clarivate Analytics, 2. Proquest Central; 3. Emerald Management Journals; 4. Jstor Business College Collections; 5. Scopus/Elsevier.

The search was made in the second half of June 2021, in abstract and key words written in English language. We only kept research articles and book chapters (herein referred to as papers). Our purpose was to identify a set of digital literacy areas, or an inventory of such areas and topics. To serve that purpose, systematic review was utilized with the following synonym key words for the search: ‘digital literacy’, ‘digital skills’, ‘digital competence’ and ‘digital fluency’, to find the mainstream literature dealing with the topic. These key words were unfolded as a result of the consultation with the subject matter experts (two board members from Korean Digital Literacy Association and two professors from technology studies department). Below are the four key word combinations used in the search: “Digital literacy AND systematic review”, “Digital skills AND systematic review”, “Digital competence AND systematic review”, and “Digital fluency AND systematic review”.

A sequential systematic search was made in the five databases mentioned above. Thus, from one database to another, duplicate papers were manually excluded in a cascade manner to extract only unique results and to make the research smoother to conduct. At this stage, we kept 47 papers. Further exclusion criteria were applied. Thus, only full-text items written in English were selected, and in doing so, three papers were excluded (no full text available), and one other paper was excluded because it was not written in English, but in Spanish. Therefore, we investigated a total number of 43 papers, as shown in Table ​ Table1. 1 . “ Appendix A ” shows the list of these papers with full references.

Number of papers identified sequentially after applying all inclusion and exclusion criteria

Data analysis

The 43 papers selected after the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, respectively, were reviewed the materials independently by two researchers who were from two different countries. The researchers identified all topics pertaining to digital literacy, as they appeared in the papers. Next, a third researcher independently analysed these findings by excluded duplicates A qualitative content analysis was manually performed by calculating the frequency of major themes in all papers, where the raw data was compared and contrasted (Fraenkel et al., 2012 ). All three reviewers independently list the words and how the context in which they appeared and then the three reviewers collectively decided for how it should be categorized. Lastly, it is vital to remind that literature review of this article was written after the identification of the themes appeared as a result of our qualitative analyses. Therefore, the authors decided to shape the literature review structure based on the themes.

As an answer to the first research question (the yearly distribution of digital literacy related papers), Fig.  1 demonstrates the yearly distribution of digital literacy related papers. It is seen that there is an increasing trend about the digital literacy papers.

Yearly distribution of digital literacy related papers

Research question number two (The research methods for digital literacy related papers) concentrates on what research methods are employed for these digital literacy related papers. As Fig.  2 shows, most of the papers were using the qualitative method. Not stated refers to book chapters.

Research methods used in the reviewed articles

When forty-three articles were analysed for the main themes as in research question number three (The main themes in digital literacy related papers), the overall findings were categorized around four major themes: (i) literacies, (ii) competencies, (iii) skills, and (iv) thinking. Under every major theme, the categories were listed and explained as in research question number four (The concentrated categories (under revealed main themes) in digital literacy related papers).

The authors utilized an overt categorization for the depiction of these major themes. For example, when the ‘creativity’ was labelled as a skill, the authors also categorized it under the ‘skills’ theme. Similarly, when ‘creativity’ was mentioned as a competency, the authors listed it under the ‘competencies’ theme. Therefore, it is possible to recognize the same finding under different major themes.

Major theme 1: literacies

Digital literacy being the major concern of this paper was observed to be blatantly mentioned in five papers out forty-three. One of these articles described digital literacy as the human proficiencies to live, learn and work in the current digital society. In addition to these five articles, two additional papers used the same term as ‘critical digital literacy’ by describing it as a person’s or a society’s accessibility and assessment level interaction with digital technologies to utilize and/or create information. Table ​ Table2 2 summarizes the major categories under ‘Literacies’ major theme.

Categories (more than one occurrence) under 'literacies' major theme

Computer literacy, media literacy and cultural literacy were the second most common literacy (n = 5). One of the article branches computer literacy as tool (detailing with software and hardware uses) and resource (focusing on information processing capacity of a computer) literacies. Cultural literacy was emphasized as a vital element for functioning in an intercultural team on a digital project.

Disciplinary literacy (n = 4) was referring to utilizing different computer programs (n = 2) or technical gadgets (n = 2) with a specific emphasis on required cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills to be able to work in any digital context (n = 3), serving for the using (n = 2), creating and applying (n = 2) digital literacy in real life.

Data literacy, technology literacy and multiliteracy were the third frequent categories (n = 3). The ‘multiliteracy’ was referring to the innate nature of digital technologies, which have been infused into many aspects of human lives.

Last but not least, Internet literacy, mobile literacy, web literacy, new literacy, personal literacy and research literacy were discussed in forty-three article findings. Web literacy was focusing on being able to connect with people on the web (n = 2), discover the web content (especially the navigation on a hyper-textual platform), and learn web related skills through practical web experiences. Personal literacy was highlighting digital identity management. Research literacy was not only concentrating on conducting scientific research ability but also finding available scholarship online.

Twenty-four other categories are unfolded from the results sections of forty-three articles. Table ​ Table3 3 presents the list of these other literacies where the authors sorted the categories in an ascending alphabetical order without any other sorting criterion. Primarily, search, tagging, filtering and attention literacies were mainly underlining their roles in information processing. Furthermore, social-structural literacy was indicated as the recognition of the social circumstances and generation of information. Another information-related literacy was pointed as publishing literacy, which is the ability to disseminate information via different digital channels.

Other mentioned categories (n = 1)

While above listed personal literacy was referring to digital identity management, network literacy was explained as someone’s social networking ability to manage the digital relationship with other people. Additionally, participatory literacy was defined as the necessary abilities to join an online team working on online content production.

Emerging technology literacy was stipulated as an essential ability to recognize and appreciate the most recent and innovative technologies in along with smart choices related to these technologies. Additionally, the critical literacy was added as an ability to make smart judgements on the cost benefit analysis of these recent technologies.

Last of all, basic, intermediate, and advanced digital assessment literacies were specified for educational institutions that are planning to integrate various digital tools to conduct instructional assessments in their bodies.

Major theme 2: competencies

The second major theme was revealed as competencies. The authors directly categorized the findings that are specified with the word of competency. Table ​ Table4 4 summarizes the entire category set for the competencies major theme.

Categories under 'competencies' major theme

The most common category was the ‘digital competence’ (n = 14) where one of the articles points to that category as ‘generic digital competence’ referring to someone’s creativity for multimedia development (video editing was emphasized). Under this broad category, the following sub-categories were associated:

• Problem solving (n = 10)
• Safety (n = 7)
• Information processing (n = 5)
• Content creation (n = 5)
• Communication (n = 2)
• Digital rights (n = 1)
• Digital emotional intelligence (n = 1)
• Digital teamwork (n = 1)
• Big data utilization (n = 1)
• Artificial Intelligence utilization (n = 1)
• Virtual leadership (n = 1)
• Self-disruption (in along with the pace of digitalization) (n = 1)

Like ‘digital competency’, five additional articles especially coined the term as ‘digital competence as a life skill’. Deeper analysis demonstrated the following points: social competences (n = 4), communication in mother tongue (n = 3) and foreign language (n = 2), entrepreneurship (n = 3), civic competence (n = 2), fundamental science (n = 1), technology (n = 1) and mathematics (n = 1) competences, learning to learn (n = 1) and self-initiative (n = 1).

Moreover, competencies were linked to workplace digital competencies in three articles and highlighted as significant for employability (n = 3) and ‘economic engagement’ (n = 3). Digital competencies were also detailed for leisure (n = 2) and communication (n = 2). Furthermore, two articles pointed digital competencies as an inter-cultural competency and one as a cross-cultural competency. Lastly, the ‘digital nativity’ (n = 1) was clarified as someone’s innate competency of being able to feel contented and satisfied with digital technologies.

Major theme 3: skills

The third major observed theme was ‘skills’, which was dominantly gathered around information literacy skills (n = 19) and information and communication technologies skills (n = 18). Table ​ Table5 5 demonstrates the categories with more than one occurrence.

Categories under 'skills' major theme

Table ​ Table6 6 summarizes the sub-categories of the two most frequent categories of ‘skills’ major theme. The information literacy skills noticeably concentrate on the steps of information processing; evaluation (n = 6), utilization (n = 4), finding (n = 3), locating (n = 2) information. Moreover, the importance of trial/error process, being a lifelong learner, feeling a need for information and so forth were evidently listed under this sub-category. On the other hand, ICT skills were grouped around cognitive and affective domains. For instance, while technical skills in general and use of social media, coding, multimedia, chat or emailing in specific were reported in cognitive domain, attitude, intention, and belief towards ICT were mentioned as the elements of affective domain.

Sub-categories under ‘information literacy’ and ‘ICT’ skills

Communication skills (n = 9) were multi-dimensional for different societies, cultures, and globalized contexts, requiring linguistic skills. Collaboration skills (n = 9) are also recurrently cited with an explicit emphasis for virtual platforms.

‘Ethics for digital environment’ encapsulated ethical use of information (n = 4) and different technologies (n = 2), knowing digital laws (n = 2) and responsibilities (n = 2) in along with digital rights and obligations (n = 1), having digital awareness (n = 1), following digital etiquettes (n = 1), treating other people with respect (n = 1) including no cyber-bullying (n = 1) and no stealing or damaging other people (n = 1).

‘Digital fluency’ involved digital access (n = 2) by using different software and hardware (n = 2) in online platforms (n = 1) or communication tools (n = 1) or within programming environments (n = 1). Digital fluency also underlined following recent technological advancements (n = 1) and knowledge (n = 1) including digital health and wellness (n = 1) dimension.

‘Social intelligence’ related to understanding digital culture (n = 1), the concept of digital exclusion (n = 1) and digital divide (n = 3). ‘Research skills’ were detailed with searching academic information (n = 3) on databases such as Web of Science and Scopus (n = 2) and their citation, summarization, and quotation (n = 2).

‘Digital teaching’ was described as a skill (n = 2) in Table ​ Table4 4 whereas it was also labelled as a competence (n = 1) as shown in Table ​ Table3. 3 . Similarly, while learning to learn (n = 1) was coined under competencies in Table ​ Table3, 3 , digital learning (n = 2, Table ​ Table4) 4 ) and life-long learning (n = 1, Table ​ Table5) 5 ) were stated as learning related skills. Moreover, learning was used with the following three terms: learning readiness (n = 1), self-paced learning (n = 1) and learning flexibility (n = 1).

Table ​ Table7 7 shows other categories listed below the ‘skills’ major theme. The list covers not only the software such as GIS, text mining, mapping, or bibliometric analysis programs but also the conceptual skills such as the fourth industrial revolution and information management.

Categories (one-time occurrence) under 'skills' major theme

Major theme 4: thinking

The last identified major theme was the different types of ‘thinking’. As Table ​ Table8 8 shows, ‘critical thinking’ was the most frequent thinking category (n = 4). Except computational thinking, the other categories were not detailed.

Categories under ‘thinking’ major theme

Computational thinking (n = 3) was associated with the general logic of how a computer works and sub-categorized into the following steps; construction of the problem (n = 3), abstraction (n = 1), disintegration of the problem (n = 2), data collection, (n = 2), data analysis (n = 2), algorithmic design (n = 2), parallelization & iteration (n = 1), automation (n = 1), generalization (n = 1), and evaluation (n = 2).

A transversal analysis of digital literacy categories reveals the following fields of digital literacy application:

• Technological advancement (IT, ICT, Industry 4.0, IoT, text mining, GIS, bibliometric analysis, mapping data, technology, AI, big data)
• Networking (Internet, web, connectivity, network, safety)
• Information (media, news, communication)
• Creative-cultural industries (culture, publishing, film, TV, leisure, content creation)
• Academia (research, documentation, library)
• Citizenship (participation, society, social intelligence, awareness, politics, rights, legal use, ethics)
• Education (life skills, problem solving, teaching, learning, education, lifelong learning)
• Professional life (work, teamwork, collaboration, economy, commerce, leadership, decision making)
• Personal level (critical thinking, evaluation, analytical thinking, innovative thinking)

This systematic review on digital literacy concentrated on forty-three articles from the databases of WoS/Clarivate Analytics, Proquest Central, Emerald Management Journals, Jstor Business College Collections and Scopus/Elsevier. The initial results revealed that there is an increasing trend on digital literacy focused academic papers. Research work in digital literacy is critical in a context of disruptive digital business, and more recently, the pandemic-triggered accelerated digitalisation (Beaunoyer, Dupéré & Guitton, 2020 ; Sousa & Rocha 2019 ). Moreover, most of these papers were employing qualitative research methods. The raw data of these articles were analysed qualitatively using systematic literature review to reveal major themes and categories. Four major themes that appeared are: digital literacy, digital competencies, digital skills and thinking.

Whereas the mainstream literature describes digital literacy as a set of photo-visual, real-time, information, branching, reproduction and social-emotional thinking (Eshet-Alkalai, 2012 ) or as a set of precise specific operations, i.e., finding, consuming, creating, communicating and sharing digital content (Heitin, 2016 ), this study reveals that digital literacy revolves around and is in connection with the concepts of computer literacy, media literacy, cultural literacy or disciplinary literacy. In other words, the present systematic review indicates that digital literacy is far broader than specific tasks, englobing the entire sphere of computer operation and media use in a cultural context.

The digital competence yardstick, DigComp (Carretero, Vuorikari & Punie, 2017 ) suggests that the main digital competencies cover information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety, and problem solving. Similarly, the findings of this research place digital competencies in relation to problem solving, safety, information processing, content creation and communication. Therefore, the findings of the systematic literature review are, to a large extent, in line with the existing framework used in the European Union.

The investigation of the main keywords associated with digital skills has revealed that information literacy, ICT, communication, collaboration, digital content creation, research and decision-making skill are the most representative. In a structured way, the existing literature groups these skills in technological, cognitive, and social (Ng, 2012 ) or, more extensively, into operational, formal, information Internet, strategic, communication and content creation (van Dijk & van Deursen, 2014 ). In time, the literature has become richer in frameworks, and prolific authors have improved their results. As such, more recent research (vaan Laar et al., 2017 ) use the following categories: technical, information management, communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving.

Whereas digital thinking was observed to be mostly related with critical thinking and computational thinking, DigComp connects it with critical thinking, creativity, and innovation, on the one hand, and researchers highlight fake news, misinformation, cybersecurity, and echo chambers as exponents of digital thinking, on the other hand (Sulzer, 2018 ; Puig, Blanco-Anaya & Perez-Maceira, 2021 ).

This systematic review research study looks ahead to offer an initial step and guideline for the development of a more contemporary digital literacy framework including digital literacy major themes and factors. The researchers provide the following recommendations for both researchers and practitioners.

Recommendations for prospective research

By considering the major qualitative research trend, it seems apparent that more quantitative research-oriented studies are needed. Although it requires more effort and time, mixed method studies will help understand digital literacy holistically.

As digital literacy is an umbrella term for many different technologies, specific case studies need be designed, such as digital literacy for artificial intelligence or digital literacy for drones’ usage.

Digital literacy affects different areas of human lives, such as education, business, health, governance, and so forth. Therefore, different case studies could be carried out for each of these unique dimensions of our lives. For instance, it is worth investigating the role of digital literacy on lifelong learning in particular, and on education in general, as well as the digital upskilling effects on the labour market flexibility.

Further experimental studies on digital literacy are necessary to realize how certain variables (for instance, age, gender, socioeconomic status, cognitive abilities, etc.) affect this concept overtly or covertly. Moreover, the digital divide issue needs to be analysed through the lens of its main determinants.

New bibliometric analysis method can be implemented on digital literacy documents to reveal more information on how these works are related or centred on what major topic. This visual approach will assist to realize the big picture within the digital literacy framework.

Recommendations for practitioners

The digital literacy stakeholders, policymakers in education and managers in private organizations, need to be aware that there are many dimensions and variables regarding the implementation of digital literacy. In that case, stakeholders must comprehend their beneficiaries or the participants more deeply to increase the effect of digital literacy related activities. For example, critical thinking and problem-solving skills and abilities are mentioned to affect digital literacy. Hence, stakeholders have to initially understand whether the participants have enough entry level critical thinking and problem solving.

Development of digital literacy for different groups of people requires more energy, since each group might require a different set of skills, abilities, or competencies. Hence, different subject matter experts, such as technologists, instructional designers, content experts, should join the team.

It is indispensably vital to develop different digital frameworks for different technologies (basic or advanced) or different contexts (different levels of schooling or various industries).

These frameworks should be updated regularly as digital fields are evolving rapidly. Every year, committees should gather around to understand new technological trends and decide whether they should address the changes into their frameworks.

Understanding digital literacy in a thorough manner can enable decision makers to correctly implement and apply policies addressing the digital divide that is reflected onto various aspects of life, e.g., health, employment, education, especially in turbulent times such as the COVID-19 pandemic is.

Lastly, it is also essential to state the study limitations. This study is limited to the analysis of a certain number of papers, obtained from using the selected keywords and databases. Therefore, an extension can be made by adding other keywords and searching other databases.

See Table ​ Management9 9 .

List of papers (n = 43) included in the qualitative analysis—ordered alphabetically by title

Author contributions

The authors worked together on the manuscript equally. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

This research is funded by Woosong University Academic Research in 2022.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Hasan Tinmaz, Email: rk.ca.ttocidne@zamnith .

Yoo-Taek Lee, Email: rk.ca.usw@eelty .

Mina Fanea-Ivanovici, Email: [email protected] .

Hasnan Baber, Email: [email protected] .

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Descriptive Essay on Digital Literacy in 500 Words

Table of Contents

The Significance of Digital Literacy in the Modern World

Introduction.

In our increasingly digitalized world, digital literacy has become a fundamental skill that is vital for personal, educational, and professional success. Digital literacy encompasses the ability to navigate, understand, and utilize digital technologies effectively. This essay explores the significance of digital literacy and its impact on individuals and society as a whole.

Understanding Digital Literacy

Digital literacy goes beyond basic computer skills; it involves a comprehensive understanding of digital tools, technologies, and their applications. This includes proficiency in using various zones such as computers, smartphones, mobile applications, and the internet. Digital literacy also encompasses critical thinking and problem-solving abilities in the digital realm, such as evaluating online information for credibility and discerning between reliable and unreliable sources.

Importance in Education

Digital literacy is increasingly important in education. Many educational institutions have adopted digital platforms for learning, necessitating digital literacy for both students and educators. Students need digital literacy to conduct research, complete assignments, and engage in online discussions. Educators require it to create digital learning materials and adapt to changing teaching methods. Without digital literacy, students and educators may struggle to keep up with the demands of modern education.

Access to Information

The internet has revolutionized the way information is accessed and shared. Digital literacy is crucial for individuals seeking to make the most of this vast knowledge repository. It enables people to search for information effectively, critically evaluate sources, and differentiate between credible and biased information. In an era of fake news and misinformation, digital literacy is a shield against being misled by unreliable sources.

Employability and Career Advancement

Digital literacy is a significant factor in employability and career advancement. Many job roles require digital skills, from basic tasks like using email and spreadsheets to more advanced skills like programming and data analysis. Individuals with strong digital literacy are more likely to secure job opportunities and adapt to rapidly evolving workplace technologies. Furthermore, digital literacy opens doors to remote work options, expanding employment possibilities.

Social Interaction and Communication

In the digital age, communication has evolved, and digital literacy is essential for effective social interaction. Social media, email, instant messaging, and video conferencing are integral to our personal and professional lives. Digital literacy enables individuals to navigate these platforms confidently, connect with others, and maintain meaningful relationships.

Cybersecurity Awareness

Digital literacy is closely tied to cybersecurity awareness. Understanding the basics of online security, such as creating strong passwords, recognizing phishing attempts, and safeguarding personal information, is essential in protecting oneself from cyber threats. A digitally literate individual is less vulnerable to online scams and cyberattacks, contributing to personal safety in the digital realm.

Promoting Digital Citizenship

Digital literacy is at the core of being a responsible digital citizen. This includes respecting online etiquette, being mindful of one’s digital footprint, and understanding issues related to privacy and online ethics. Digital citizens contribute positively to the digital community, promoting a safe and respectful online environment.

In a world that is becoming increasingly dependent on digital technologies, digital literacy is no longer optional but a necessity. It empowers individuals to access information, engage in education and employment opportunities, communicate effectively, and protect themselves in the digital landscape. Therefore, efforts to promote digital literacy should be a priority for educational institutions, governments, and individuals alike. In doing so, we can ensure that everyone has the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in the digital age and contribute positively to society.

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Student Writing in the Digital Age

Essays filled with “LOL” and emojis? College student writing today actually is longer and contains no more errors than it did in 1917.

“Kids these days” laments are nothing new, but the substance of the lament changes. Lately, it has become fashionable to worry that “kids these days” will be unable to write complex, lengthy essays. After all, the logic goes, social media and text messaging reward short, abbreviated expression. Student writing will be similarly staccato, rushed, or even—horror of horrors—filled with LOL abbreviations and emojis.

In fact, the opposite seems to be the case. Students in first-year composition classes are, on average, writing longer essays (from an average of 162 words in 1917, to 422 words in 1986, to 1,038 words in 2006), using more complex rhetorical techniques, and making no more errors than those committed by freshman in 1917. That’s according to a longitudinal study of student writing by Andrea A. Lunsford and Karen J. Lunsford, “ Mistakes Are a Fact of Life: A National Comparative Study. ”

In 2006, two rhetoric and composition professors, Lunsford and Lunsford, decided, in reaction to government studies worrying that students’ literacy levels were declining, to crunch the numbers and determine if students were making more errors in the digital age.

They began by replicating previous studies of American college student errors. There were four similar studies over the past century. In 1917, a professor analyzed the errors in 198 college student papers; in 1930, researchers completed similar studies of 170 and 20,000 papers, respectively. In 1986, Robert Connors and Andrea Lunsford (of the 2006 study) decided to see if contemporary students were making more or fewer errors than those earlier studies showed, and analyzed 3,000 student papers from 1984. The 2006 study (published in 2008) follows the process of these earlier studies and was based on 877 papers (one of the most interesting sections of “Mistakes Are a Fact of Life” discusses how new IRB regulations forced researchers to work with far fewer papers than they had before.

Remarkably, the number of errors students made in their papers stayed consistent over the past 100 years. Students in 2006 committed roughly the same number of errors as students did in 1917. The average has stayed at about 2 errors per 100 words.

What has changed are the kinds of errors students make. The four 20th-century studies show that, when it came to making mistakes, spelling tripped up students the most. Spelling was by far the most common error in 1986 and 1917, “the most frequent student mistake by some 300 percent.” Going down the list of “top 10 errors,” the patterns shifted: Capitalization was the second most frequent error 1917; in 1986, that spot went to “no comma after introductory element.”

In 2006, spelling lost its prominence, dropping down the list of errors to number five.  Spell-check and similar word-processing tools are the undeniable cause. But spell-check creates new errors, too: The new number-one error in student writing is now “wrong word.” Spell-check, as most of us know, sometimes corrects spelling to a different word than intended; if the writing is not later proof-read, this computer-created error goes unnoticed. The second most common error in 2006 was “incomplete or missing documentation,” a result, the authors theorize, of a shift in college assignments toward research papers and away from personal essays.

Additionally, capitalization errors have increased, perhaps, as Lunsford and Lunsford note, because of neologisms like eBay and iPod. But students have also become much better at punctuation and apostrophes, which were the third and fifth most common errors in 1917. These had dropped off the top 10 list by 2006.

The study found no evidence for claims that kids are increasingly using “text speak” or emojis in their papers. Lunsford and Lunsford did not find a single such instance of this digital-era error. Ironically, they did find such text speak and emoticons in teachers’ comments to students. (Teachers these days?)

The most startling discovery Lunsford and Lunsford made had nothing to do with errors or emojis. They found that college students are writing much more and submitting much longer papers than ever. The average college essay in 2006 was more than double the length of the average 1986 paper, which was itself much longer than the average length of papers written earlier in the century. In 1917, student papers averaged 162 words; in 1930, the average was 231 words. By 1986, the average grew to 422 words. And just 20 years later, in 2006, it jumped to 1,038 words.

Why are 21st-century college students writing so much more? Computers allow students to write faster. (Other advances in writing technology may explain the upticks between 1917, 1930, and 1986. Ballpoint pens and manual and electric typewriters allowed students to write faster than inkwells or fountain pens.) The internet helps, too: Research shows that computers connected to the internet lead K-12 students to “conduct more background research for their writing; they write, revise, and publish more; they get more feedback on their writing; they write in a wider variety of genres and formats; and they produce higher quality writing.”

The digital revolution has been largely text-based. Over the course of an average day, Americans in 2006 wrote more than they did in 1986 (and in 2015 they wrote more than in 2006). New forms of written communication—texting, social media, and email—are often used instead of spoken ones—phone calls, meetings, and face-to-face discussions. With each text and Facebook update, students become more familiar with and adept at written expression. Today’s students have more experience with writing, and they practice it more than any group of college students in history.

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In shifting from texting to writing their English papers, college students must become adept at code-switching, using one form of writing for certain purposes (gossiping with friends) and another for others (summarizing plots). As Kristen Hawley Turner writes in “ Flipping the Switch: Code-Switching from Text Speak to Standard English ,” students do know how to shift from informal to formal discourse, changing their writing as occasions demand. Just as we might speak differently to a supervisor than to a child, so too do students know that they should probably not use “conversely” in a text to a friend or “LOL” in their Shakespeare paper. “As digital natives who have had access to computer technology all of their lives, they often demonstrate in theses arenas proficiencies that the adults in their lives lack,” Turner writes. Instructors should “teach them to negotiate the technology-driven discourse within the confines of school language.”

Responses to Lunsford and Lunsford’s study focused on what the results revealed about mistakes in writing: Error is often in the eye of the beholder . Teachers mark some errors and neglect to mention (or find) others. And, as a pioneering scholar of this field wrote in the 1970s, context is key when analyzing error: Students who make mistakes are not “indifferent…or incapable” but “beginners and must, like all beginners, learn by making mistakes.”

College students are making mistakes, of course, and they have much to learn about writing. But they are not making more mistakes than did their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Since they now use writing to communicate with friends and family, they are more comfortable expressing themselves in words. Plus, most have access to technology that allows them to write faster than ever. If Lunsford and Lunsford’s findings about the average length of student papers stays true, today’s college students will graduate with more pages of completed prose to their name than any other generation.

If we want to worry about college student writing, then perhaps what we should attend to is not clipped, abbreviated writing, but overly verbose, rambling writing. It might be that editing skills—deciding what not to say, and what to delete—may be what most ails the kids these days.

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